by Gene Wolfe
The priest said our old master offended his god in every way, that he was the stinking excrement of a depraved woman of no family. At last they agreed on a price, which the priest paid, and at once both began to smile. Only then did the priest speak to me, telling me to go with him.
I pretended not to understand, shaking my head and looking at the ground. Our old master spoke to the woman I love, and she to me, saying I must go. I told her truly that I would not go without her.
The priest struck me, and my eyes must have shown what I planned to do as soon as we were alone. I feel sure they did, because I saw the fear rush into his.
He spoke to the woman, saying he regretted striking me, and that he would be kind from this day forward. I pretended not to understand until the woman said it. I told her, "That's all very well, but I will not go without you."
She explained to the priest, at which our old master grinned widely and began to praise her. She is lovely and obedient, can read and write, can sing and play the lute in her wooden case.
At last everything was arranged between them. This woman is called Myt-ser'eu, and she is my wife. She explained these things later, as we walked. I think it fortunate-I love her and am glad indeed to learn that I have already won her. We were traveling south on a fine large ship, but left the ship to fight the people here and were taken and sold. MYT-SER'EU SAYS I must write so I will not forget. We are going to a place called Meroe. We do not belong to the priest who guides us, but to his temple. It is the last temple-I overheard him telling her this. There are no more temples south of his. She wept to hear it. She is under the protection of a goddess and says her goddess cannot see her here. I tried to comfort her.
A strange thing happened just before midday. A beetle struck my chest and clung there. I could not brush it away. She said it was a sacred beetle and should not be touched or harmed. I promised not to pluck it off, believing it would soon fly again. It did not, but seized the string around my neck and held on to it, swinging and tapping my chest as I walked. I examined it quite carefully a moment ago, and it is enameled gold. She says it is another I wore before we were taken, a seal. I must surely have hidden it in the case in which we keep this scroll. If I had hidden it, there or anywhere, would I not remember finding it today?
The young priest rides a fine white mule. His name is Holy Kashta. My wife rides a donkey. She says she walked at first, as I do, but could not keep pace with us all day in this heat. My wife's donkey also carries a little food and other things. My wife keeps this scroll case for me when we travel, so that I do not have to carry it. I hang my club in the loops on the back of my shield and sling my shield behind me. When the sun is high I carry it on my head for shade.
Here the road leaves the river, which roars over rocks. The people of this village say a ship was taken apart here and carried south over the road, then launched again, which seems to me nearly as strange as the sacred beetle that has become my necklace. They were well paid to help carry the ship, and gave us food freely. My Myt-ser'eu says we had to threaten the people at the place where we stopped last night. I do not recall it. Fresh fish and flat barley cakes are our food, with the dates and raisins her donkey carries. Holy Kashta has blessed this place.
He tells us of his god, Seth, whom he says is very great. All gods are very great, I think, when their priests speak of them. Four temples remain in his city, that of Seth to which we belong, that of Isis, that of Apedemak, and that of the Sun. That of Seth is the southernmost, the last temple in his city and in all the world. My wife fears this god greatly. "THE ROAD GOES south, always south." Myt-ser'eu says this, and weeps. Her home, she says, lies far to the north, near the Great Sea-each step carries her farther from it. Mine too lies on a shore of that sea, she says. She does not know where. I said I would bind the priest, beat him, and steal a boat. In it we could follow the river north to her home. She said we would be pursued and retaken long before we reached Kemet, and that its southern border was still whole months of travel from her home. Our best chance, she said, was to follow the ship we had left, on which are many strong friends. Or else to win our freedom from the temple.
"The last temple," I said.
She agreed that it was the last-the priest says this-but wanted to know why I thought it important.
I did not know, nor do I know now. The answer may be in this scroll, as she says. But I could not find it tonight. WE ARE IN Meroe, housed in the temple of Seth, the Great God of the South. Meroe is built on an island in the Great River. Our temple is at the southern end of this island, as is proper for Great Seth. Its door beholds the sun in winter-Holy Kashta says this.
There are three priests; Holy Alara is another, Most Holy Tobarqo the chief priest. He is old and forgetful, and wears a leopard skin. When Kashta presented us to him, he did not remember sending forth Kashta to buy us. We smiled much at him, bowed low, and promised to obey in all things, to do our work willingly, and not to steal. He smiled on us and gave us the blessing of his god. In truth, I would not wish to harm so old a man-it would be like fighting a child.
The priests have houses and families near the temple, but Myt-ser'eu and I live in it, she to sweep and scrub, cook, wash clothes, and gather flowers in season. I to guard it by night. There is much gold here, and the priests say thieves have robbed the city of the dead until there is nothing left.
"You must sleep by day so you will be awake by night," Kashta told me. "Do not unbar the doors unless one of us tells you to. They will throw a hook through the windows and climb a rope to enter, using the same rope to descend. Kill them."
I said I would. I will forget, I know, but I have told Myt-ser'eu, who will tell me each evening when I wake. WE WENT TO the market today. Kashta wished to send Myt-ser'eu; but it is dangerous, he says, for a woman to go to the market alone. They woke me for this. I left my shield here, but took my club. Half the houses are in ruins, though men and women still live in many and their children play in the ruins. "This is too interesting not to look at," Myt-ser'eu declared. "Let's walk around the whole place and see everything we can. It's not large, and we can tell Holy Kashta we got lost."
I agreed and we set out, seeing many houses half fallen, and the broken doors of the houses of the dead. Voices called to me from the rifled tombs, but after the second I did not reply. "The ghosts are thirsty here," I told Myt-ser'eu; she told me of a woman of wax who thirsted for her blood and the blood of another woman. This woman fought for us in a terrible battle in which cobras and lions fought for us as well. I recall a great golden lioness, and told Myt-ser'eu of her. She said I could remember nothing, and so could not recall this lioness. Yet I do.
The palace that was the king's lies in ruins. We walked through parts of it, and saw the tank in which the king bathed. There is still a king, Myt-ser'eu says, but he rules from Napata and cares nothing for this ruinous city of Meroe. We were at Napata for a month or more, she says, but I was very ill. She had my scroll and could not return it to me because I was too ill to hide it.
The market seemed small, and there were more sellers than buyers. I saw the teeth of a great boar, curving tusks longer than a spear. This boar must have been very great. The meat was beef, pork, antelope, and river-horse. Myt-ser'eu says the priests eat pork, but it is an unclean meat. They will give her no meat at all. Of that she is glad, not wishing to eat pork.
Strange men from the south had come to the market to trade, tall scarred men who paint their bodies red and white. They have bows, spears, big shields, and long knives. One stall sold arrows and bows much like theirs. The bows seemed good, long and strong, but the arrows had heads of sharp stone. I inquired, and the one who kept the stall said iron is costly here. I must have seen arrows like his before, for something stirred in me when I examined them.
I wished to buy a little dish, but Myt-ser'eu would not buy it for me. There are many such small dishes in Kashta's house, she said, and when she brought my food she gave me one. I wished milk as well, and there was milk left from
the dinner she made for his family. She went back to the priest's house and got it for me.
Thus I have filled my little dish, and set it near the crack from which the snake comes. He is my only company when I guard the temple by night, and I wish him to understand that I am his friend. Snakes like milk, I know.
Now I write by the light of my lamp, and read, too. The moon looks in at a window, a fair young woman with a round, pale face. The windows are high. From time to time I hear the god stir in his holiest place, but when I look in on him he has not moved. He is a god. I AM AWAKE! I held my hand over the flame until the pain was too great. It was not yet gone. No man could sleep knowing such pain.
The god spoke to me. He came out, and his face was no longer the face of a wild dog but the face of a man as red as desert sand. He is taller than I, and stronger, too. "You have forgotten me," he said, and his voice was the wind among dry stones. "We are old comrades, you and I, and I thought you would never sleep."
I bowed and said that I must not sleep, that I must protect his temple.
"It will pass. The people will go, and not one stone will stand upon its brother. Do you not know you sleep?"
"I know I sleep by day," I said, "but never by night, Great Seth, for that is when I guard your house."
"Come to me," he said, and I came, though I trembled. He laid his hands upon my shoulders and made me turn about. "Look, and tell me what you see."
"Myself. My club lies beside me, the writing brush has fallen from my hand, and my scroll is spread across my knee."
"Do you sleep?"
"I do sleep," I acknowledged. "Spare me!"
"I will do more. I will see that you gain your dearest wish. Will you help me do it?"
"Gladly," I said.
"You have a small dagger. It was hidden in the case that holds your scroll when the woman returned it to you. It is there now."
"It is yours," I said, "if you wish it."
"I do not. This is what I wish. When you wake, you must carve two words in your club, carve them in the tongue in which you hear me now."
"I will, Great Seth. I will do whatever you ask. What are the words?"
"You act for yourself, not for me. Carve lost temple."
I woke with the dagger in my hand. It is small but very sharp, with an eye in its grip like the eye of a needle. The wood is very hard, but I have incised the words spoken by the god deep into that wood.
Lost temple.
What a strange awakening!
29
WE ARE FREE
THE PAINTED KING of the south came to our temple today with twenty painted warriors. He demanded to see me, and the priest sent Myt-ser'eu to wake me. When the king had seen me, he wished to buy me. He did not wish to buy Myt-ser'eu, but I swore I would never obey him unless he did. We said these things by signs. He sent a boy, and we waited until the boy returned.
When he did there were eunuchs with him, and a brown woman richly robed. The painted king spoke with her in a tongue I did not understand.
She looked carefully at me and made me stand in a place in which the light was better. At length she nodded and spoke to him, urging some course of action-or so it seemed to me.
He shook his head and turned away.
She returned to me. "You know me and I know you. I'm Queen Bittusilma. Confess that you know me!"
I knelt. "I do not know you, Great Queen. I do not remember as others do. The fault is mine." This was not in the tongue I speak to the priests and to Myt-ser'eu. Neither was it in the tongue in which I write it.
The king bought us both, though it was not said in that way. He made gifts of ivory and gold to the temple, and the priests gave us to him. Myt-ser'eu had to remove her gown then, and I my tunic. It was the queen who told us we must. Nakedness is the sign of slavery among the king's people. (She herself is of another nation, as she told me.) Boats rowed by warriors carried us and a score of others south until we halted here to make camp.
The country through which we passed was of great interest, and grew more so with each stroke of the paddles. Here the thatched houses of the poor are more numerous, larger, and cleaner, too. The land itself seems to me richer-yet more wild, its forests ever taller and its rolling grasslands dotted with more trees. It is a timeless land made for the chase, but there are wide swamps with many crocodiles. Myt-ser'eu says the biting flies are the worst we have seen. We rub ourselves with fat to keep them off, though ours is the fat used by eunuchs and women, not colored like the vermilion and white pastes worn by the king and his warriors.
When the king's tent was up he summoned us, sending away everyone save the queen and an old man who is his councillor.
"Seven Lions is my husband," the queen told us. "You do not remember him, but he remembers you very well. So do I. You and he were great friends long ago."
I said, "My heart warms to him, but I don't remember. As you say."
"I'm Babylonian. Seven Lions returned me to my home in Babylon, as I wished. He remained there with me for over a year. Then he wished to return to his own home and persuaded me to accompany him. He will not speak as you and I speak now, but he understands everything we say."
I nodded and explained what had been said to Myt-ser'eu.
"We came to the kingdom in the south that is now ours," the queen continued. "We found the throne vacant, and he took it for us. He is our king and our greatest warrior."
His size, his evident strength, and his eyes-his eyes most of all-told me she spoke the truth. "I do not wish to fight him," I told her.
She laughed, but at once grew serious. "No one does. I want him to come back to Babylon with me, Latro. He promised to do it. Then a god spoke to him in a dream, telling him you were in that temple in Meroe. I thought it nonsense, but we went, and there you were. The god had told him to take you to a certain ruin, where I have never been. It lies far to the south. We have to do it, and you have to go with us."
Recalling what I had promised when the king bought Myt-ser'eu, I said, "I am the king's slave. I'll go willingly wherever he may send me."
At this the king spoke vehemently, at first to the queen, then to his aged advisor, and then to queen again.
She said, "He will free you tonight, and your wife too. It is why he has summoned you. I was to tell you."
I thanked him, bowing.
"You understand that I wish to go to Babylon, not to this ruin."
The king spoke, this time to her alone.
"He says we will go to Babylon after we have done the will of the god. I might point out that we might as easily go to Babylon, and do the will of the god afterward."
The scarab I wore rose and fluttered on silver wings as she finished.
For the first time the old councilor spoke, pointing upstream-the direction in which the scarab had sought to fly. The king nodded.
"That's a live beetle you wear," the queen said. "I thought it was an ornament."
"It is," I told her. I removed it and handed it to her. She examined it, stared at me, returned it suspended by the string, and turned her eyes to the ground.
The old councillor spoke again. It was in the tongue I use when I speak with Myt-ser'eu. "I am called Unguja," he said. "Our king is so kind as to hear me, though I am but a foolish grandfather. We cannot please the god unless we do his will, nor can we do his will unless we please him."
Myt-ser'eu said, "I'm under the protection of a goddess, wise one, and wish to return to my home in the north. The ship that will return me there is in the south. It may be that my goddess favors me, leading us to that ship."
He shrugged, but did not speak.
After that we were given new clothing. Slowly, with many invocations and great care, the old man painted me as King Seven Lions and his warriors are painted, as white as leprosy on one side and vermilion on the other. When it was finished, Myt-ser'eu and I dressed and thanked the king for our freedom. He embraced me, and I felt I knew him as well as he knew me. He is a good and brave man, I feel sure. H
is people call him Mfalme, and bend their heads when they speak the name.
Here I should stop and lie with Myt-ser'eu as she wishes. I will say one thing more, wisdom I took from the old man called Unguja. No one can be good unless he is brave; and any man who is brave is good in that, if in no other way. If he is brave enough, there must always be some good in him. MYT-SER'EU IS DANCING with excitement. She wished me to read this scroll while we were in the boat. I would not, knowing that the river water could destroy it very quickly. Thus she told me instead-a great deal about the ship she seeks and the men and women on board. There is a wonderful woman of wax who lives at times (Myt-ser'eu says), which I do not believe. Myt-ser'eu also says she was saved from this woman by a god, which I believe even less than the first if that is possible. With this wax woman is a wizard who brings her to life, a priest, a wise man who once read her future in the stars, and many others. I asked her future; but she would not reveal it, saying that such prophecies only grow worse if they are revealed. She appeared troubled. I asked whether this wise man had read my future, too. She did not know.
All this was occasioned by our stopping at a village the night before-the northernmost of those ruled by the king, Unguja says. When we were about to leave it, Myt-ser'eu learned that the ship she seeks had passed it yesterday.
She would have had us press on all night, if necessary, to overtake it. Now she hopes that we may find it tomorrow. I asked whether it was rowed or sailed. She said it was sailed, and only rarely rowed. If that is so, her hope is well founded; there has been but little wind. AT THIS VILLAGE the river divides. Its forks are called the Blue and the White. We will follow the White, the river on which the ruin the king seeks lies. It was here that the king was born, the queen says, though his capital lies far to the south. From here he left to join the army of the Great King who rules her native city, and Myt-ser'eu's as well. I spoke to him of that, and he listened attentively. The queen translated his replies-I cannot say how honestly. When he first knew me, I commanded a hundred soldiers from my own city; he commanded men from his village and others. They would have fought, but he and I prevented it. His eyes told me many other things had happened, but he would not speak of them. Perhaps he does not wish the queen to know certain things. Myt-ser'eu has told me how he freed us from slavery. We clasped hands, and I declared that because he had freed me I would fight for him whenever he required it.