To the Land of the Living

by Robert Silverberg

  “Mother—”

  “And then I came to this new Uruk, knowing you had been king here, and thinking you might still hold your throne—but no, no, they said you had taken your leave of this city long ago, that you had gone hunting with Enkidu and never returned, more years ago than anyone could remember. And I thought, very well, the gods have no wish to let me see my son again, for this is the Afterworld and few wishes are granted here. But then the word came that you were approaching the city. Oh, Gilgamesh! What joy it is to behold you again!”

  “And my father?” Gilgamesh asked. “What of the divine Lugalbanda? Surely there is no way he can be here, for he is a god, and how can there be gods in the Afterworld? But do you know anything of him?”

  Ninsun’s eyes clouded a moment. “He is here too, of that I am certain. For those who were made gods after their lives in Sumer are gods no longer, and dwell in the Afterworld. You elevated me to godhood, Gilgamesh, do you remember?”

  “Yes,” he said, only a murmur.

  “And you yourself—they ranked you with the gods also. It makes no difference. Those who live as mortals die as mortals, and come to this place.”

  “You know with certainty that Lugalbanda is here, then?”

  “Not with certainty, no. But I think he is. Of him I have heard not one word in all the time I have been here. But some day he and I will find one another again, of that I am sure.”

  “Yes,” Gilgamesh said once more, nodding. It had never occurred to him that his father might indeed be somewhere in the Afterworld, and the possibility aroused excitement and amazement in his breast. “In the Afterworld all things happen, sooner or later. You will be reunited with the king your husband and live by his side as the Sky-father ordained, for you and he were mated for all time and this span in the Afterworld has been but a brief separation; and I—”

  An odd look came then into Ninsun’s face. For an instant she lowered her eyes, as though abashed. The queenly splendor, the goddess-glow, went from her, and for that instant she seemed to be only a mere mortal woman.

  “Have I spoken amiss?” Gilgamesh asked.

  She said, “You have uttered nothing that should not have been spoken. But I would have you meet my friend, Gilgamesh.”

  “Your—friend—?”

  Color rose to her cheeks in a curiously girlish way that Gilgamesh was altogether unable to associate with his memories of the regal presence of his mother. She nodded toward a man of considerable years sitting beside her, who got now to his feet.

  Standing, he was less than breast-high to Gilgamesh, a short balding man, very short, not so tall by half a head as Ninsun herself; and yet as Gilgamesh looked more closely he saw that although he was old there was a strange elemental force about this man, a look of enormous power and commanding strength, that made him seem not nearly as short nor as old as he actually was, made him look, indeed, kingly in size and stance and vigor. It was the depth and breadth of his shoulders and torso that gave him that potent look, Gilgamesh thought: that and his eyes, which were the most intense that the Sumerian had ever seen, more penetrating, even, than those of Imbe Calandola the mage. Astonishing eyes, they were, dark and glittering, the eyes of a hawk, the eyes of an eagle—no, the eyes of a god, merciless eyes, all-seeing eyes. They blazed like black jewels in his face.

  Gilgamesh realized abruptly that this strange and powerful little man must be his mother’s lover; and it was a disturbing thought indeed.

  Hard enough to find her transformed into a young woman again, beautiful, and for all he knew lusty; but harder still to think of her with a woman’s earthy nature, seeking a man’s bed, this man’s bed, this old man, this man who had no hair, his arms about her, his fingers probing the secret places of her body that only Lugalbanda the king had known—

  Fool, he thought. She is your mother, but she is also a woman, and was a woman before she was your mother. She has not seen Lugalbanda for five thousand years, and all vows are canceled in this place. Did you think she would remain chaste for the whole five thousand years that she has spent thus far in the Afterworld? Do you think she should?

  Still, why this man?—this old man, so short, not even any hair on his head, his leathery skin deeply folded, lined—

  “I am called Ruiz,” the little man said. “She is your mother? Good. You are a fitting son. She should be the mother of giants, this woman. The mother of gods, eh? And you are the famous Gilgamesh. Mucho gusto en conocerlo, Señor Gilgamesh.” Ruiz grinned warmly, boldly, and put out his hand in a casual and confident manner, as though they were equals, standing eye to eye, one giant to another. He was the biggest little man Gilgamesh had ever seen.

  At the sound of his voice, at the touch of his hand, Gilgamesh began to understand why his mother had chosen this man; or rather, why she had allowed herself to be chosen by him. Choice must have had nothing to do with it. He was like an irresistible force, a river running unstoppably toward the sea.

  “Pablo is an artist,” Ninsun said. “A painter, a man of pictures. He is making a picture of me.” With a little laugh she said, “He will not let me look at it. But I know it will be a very great picture.”

  “There are difficulties,” Ruiz said. “But I will conquer them. Your mother is extraordinary—her face, her presence—I will make such a painting of her as the Devil himself will want to buy. Only I will not sell it to him. And then, after her, you, eh, Gilgamesh?”

  “Me?”

  “To pose. I will put a mask on you, the head of a bull, and you will be my Minotaur. The finest Minotaur ever, the true man-monster, the creature of the Labyrinth. Eh? Eh? What do you say, Gilgamesh? I like you. You know, this Sunday, el domingo que viene, there will be a bullfight in Uruk. You know the bullfight, eh? La corrida? You know what it is, to fight with bulls?”

  “I know what that is, yes,” said Gilgamesh.

  “Good. Of course. You will sit with me that day. We will observe the fine points, you and I. You like that? The seat of honor, beside me.” The little man’s amazing eyes gleamed. “And tomorrow you come to me and we begin to plan the posing, eh? We must begin at once. I will make you great with my painting.”

  “He is great already,” said Ninsun quietly.

  “Por supuesto! Of course. He is a king, he is a legend, we all know that. But there is greatness and greatness, eh, Gilgamesh? You will be my Minotaur. You know? The son of Minos, but not really Minos’s son, but en realidad the son of the bull, who I think was Poseidon. Eh? You will pose for me?”

  It was only barely a question. This man, Gilgamesh saw, did not regard his questions as questions, but as commands. The curious urgency of his desire to paint him was amusing, and, in its way, compelling. A mere painter, an artisan, a dauber on walls, was all he was, and yet he seemed to think that making a painting of Gilgamesh wearing a bull-mask was a matter of the most supreme importance. Maybe it was. It mattered at least as much as anything else here. To his surprise Gilgamesh found himself liking this little man, and even respecting him. And not even resenting him for having taken possession of Ninsun as apparently he had. He felt an affinity with him that he had felt for very few of the Later Dead. This Ruiz was like someone out of a much older time even than that of Gilgamesh, a time when the distinctions between gods and men had not been as great as they later became. There was about him a demigod’s nature. It took only a single glance to see that.

  “Yes,” Gilgamesh said. “I will pose for you, Ruiz. I will come to you tomorrow, yes.”

  Dumuzi said then, “To your seats, everyone! It is time for the wine! It is time for the meat!”

  * * *

  FIFTEEN

  IT was the hour of first light. They had drunk the night away. Simon Magus was asleep in his seat, snoring. The old sorcerer had been bored and restless throughout the feast, feeling neglected and out of place. Herod sat slouched over a flask of golden wine, the same one he had nursed half the evening; he looked to be frayed and weary, at the last edge of his endurance, but he see
med determined to hang on. He was talking earnestly with a lean, dark, heavily bearded man in a flowing white robe. Dumuzi, puffy-eyed and pale, was also clearly making an effort at staying awake, though his head was nodding. Across the way, Ninsun looked tired but game, and little Ruiz beside her showed no sign of fatigue whatever; his eyes were keen and gleaming still, and he was scrawling drawings by the dozen on the table napery, on dirty plates, on any flat surface that came to hand.

  Vy-otin, still impeccable in his crisp and no doubt miserably uncomfortable Later Dead clothes, came to Gilgamesh’s side and said quietly, “Come, let us go for a little walk. The air is fresher outside, and I have things to tell you. Some advice for you, perhaps.”

  “Yes,” Gilgamesh said. “Of course.”

  Rising, he bowed to Dumuzi—how costly that was to his spirit, bowing to Dumuzi!—and asked to be excused. The king feebly waved his hand. Gilgamesh and the Ice-Hunter chieftain went down the long high-vaulted aisle of the feasting-hall toward the distant doorway.

  By early morning light everything had a red glow. The sun hung low in the sky, a fat distended globe, as though it meant to touch the tips of the Afterworld’s mountains before noon.

  Gilgamesh said, “How peaceful it is at this hour. Even in the Afterworld, one finds peace now and then.”

  Vy-otin’s wind-tanned face turned stern. His single eye was bright and fierce. “Peace? In other places, maybe, but not here. The only peace you’ll find in Uruk is the peace of death. Get yourself out of this city, old friend, as quickly as you can.”

  “I have only just arrived, Vy-otin. It would be discourteous to leave so soon.”

  “Stay, then. But only if you’re weary of your present life.”

  “Am I in danger, do you think?”

  “Tell me this, and what you tell me will be secret, by our ancient oaths of loyalty: Have you come to Uruk to regain its throne, Gilgamesh?”

  The Sumerian halted abruptly, startled. “Do you think that’s why I’m here?”

  “Dumuzi does.”

  “Ah, does he? He was ever full of fear.”

  “And he will have you killed if you remain here,” said Vy-otin.

  “He will try to, yes. I would expect that of him. He won’t find killing me that easy.”

  “He is king in this city, Gilgamesh.”

  “And I am Gilgamesh. I will stay as long as I please. No one of Sumerian blood will dare raise a hand against me.”

  “Not everyone in Uruk is Sumerian,” Vy-otin said. “No more than one out of ten, perhaps. There are plenty here who’d like the glory of slaying the famous Gilgamesh. Dumuzi won’t lack for assassins.”

  “Let them come. I can defend myself.”

  “Indeed. But it’s true, then, that you are here to take his throne from him?”

  “No!” cried Gilgamesh angrily. “Why does everyone assume that? I don’t want his throne or any other. Believe me. I lost my appetite for power a long time ago, Vy-otin. That is the absolute truth. Believe me. Trust me in this. Trust me.”

  Vy-otin laughed. “That is three or four times in one breath that you call upon me to believe you. It has always seemed to me that only a man who doubts his own words would ask so passionately to be believed.”

  Gilgamesh, stung, gave the Ice-Hunter a furious glare. “You think I’m lying to you?”

  “I think you may be lying to yourself.”

  “Ah,” Gilgamesh said. His hands trembled. He felt rage surging up and down his body—and subsiding. For a long moment he was silent, holding himself utterly still. After a time he said, “Anyone else, Vy-otin, and I would have struck him down for those words. But not you. Not you.” He grew quiet again; and then in a very low voice he said, “I will tell you the truth: I no longer know my own soul. I say to myself that I shun power, that I loathe ambition, that I have only scorn for those who scramble for preferment in the land of the Afterworld. And yet—and yet—lately, Vy-otin, there are times when I feel the old fires rising, when I see that I am not as different from other men as I like to think, that I too am driven by that vain urge to clamber to the top of the mountain—” He shook his head. “The truth is as I have already said: I am not at all sure of my own purposes any longer. Perhaps Dumuzi does have something to fear from me after all. But I tell you this, Vy-otin, that I had another reason besides seizing the throne for coming to Uruk.”

  “Which was?”

  “I learned from a sorcerer in the city of Brasil that Enkidu might be here, my dearest friend, the brother of my soul, from whom I have been apart far too often and too long.”

  “I remember Enkidu, yes. The great hairy roistering man, like a wild bull.”

  “I came here to find him. Nothing more than that. That is the truth. I swear to you, that is the truth as I believe it.”

  “Do you have any certain knowledge that he is in Uruk?”

  “Only a vision, inspired in me by the wizardry of a black mage. But I think it is a sure vision.”

  “I wish you joy of the search, then, and all good fortune,” said Vy-otin, seizing both of Gilgamesh’s hands in his. “By the Horns of God, I will help you in any way I can! But be careful in this city, Gilgamesh. Dumuzi is sly and slippery, and he hates you more than you can imagine. He would send you to the Afterworld a thousand times over if you were not already here.”

  “I will be wary of him,” Gilgamesh said. “I know Dumuzi’s ways from the other world.”

  They walked on for a long while, neither of them speaking. The sullen glow of the sun deepened and climbed and the morning air grew warm. The houses and shops of Uruk began to come to life.

  After a time Gilgamesh said, “You have not told me, friend, why you wear this absurd garb of yours.”

  “I have come to like it,” said Vy-otin easily.

  “Perhaps so. But it is an odd costume for one who was born at the beginning of time.”

  “Do I seem that old to you, Gilgamesh? Think of the Hairy Men, who look so near to apes. They are truly ancient. Who knows when they lived? It must have been long ago, for they are nothing like us, though they tell us they are our cousins. My time was only ten thousand years before yours. Or perhaps—who can say?—fifteen. I am a man like you.”

  “Ten thousand years is not a sneeze, Vy-otin. Your time was much before mine. About the Hairy Men I cannot tell you. But you come from a world I never knew, and it was very long before mine. Why, you lived before the Flood!”

  “So you like to say.” Vy-otin shrugged. “Perhaps so. I know nothing of your Flood. In my time the world was deep in ice. The sun was bright, the air was cool, the wind cut like a knife. The great shaggy beasts roamed the land. It was the grandest of times, Gilgamesh. There were just a few of us, you know, but we were magnificent! You should have seen us, running to the hunt, moving between the dark leafless trees like ghosts! By the Horns, I wish you had been there with us!” In a different, darker voice he said, “I wish I were still there now.”

  “You made it all live again, that time of cold and great beasts, in your palace in the north,” said Gilgamesh. “With the giant tusks on the floor, and the furry skins on the walls, and your people gathered around you. I remember it well, though it was so long ago that I was with you there. Why did you leave that place?”

  “You were king in this very city. Why did you leave?”

  “How can I say? We move about in the Afterworld without understanding anything. I was in this Uruk, and then I was not in Uruk, and I remembered nothing of Uruk. Perhaps I was slain, and awoke somewhere else, Nova Roma, perhaps, or some other city far away. I have no memory of that. Anything could have happened. All I can say is that I was here and then I was not here. The memory of how and why I left has been stolen from me.”

  “Not from me,” said Vy-otin. “I was killed. A stupid brawl, some drunken Egyptians—I made the mistake of getting between them, the usual thing. I went to the darkness that comes between lives and was gone a thousand years, or maybe two, and when I came back I was s
omewhere else far from any place I knew. Do you know the city of Dis, Gilgamesh?”

  “Dis? No.”

  “On the far side of the White Sea.”

  “I had no idea there was anything at all on the far side.”

  “The Afterworld is infinite, friend. I lived in Dis a long while, and then I crossed the sea, and now I live in Uruk. My people are scattered and no one remembers the palace in the north. Everything changes, Gilgamesh, and not for the better.”

  “And you decided to dress as Later Dead in the city Dis, is that it? Why?”

  “So they wouldn’t know I was prehistoric. For that is what they call me, prehistoric, as though I were some kind of animal.”

  “They? Who?”

  “The scholars,” Vy-otin said. “The philosophers. The archaeologists. The dull prying boring Later Dead folk. Let me tell you what happened, Gilgamesh. In Dis I fell in with a man of the Later Dead, short and ugly, but strong, very strong, a musician: Wagner was his name. And his friend, who was called Nietzsche, if you can think of that as a name, and another one, a Jew like your Herod, but older, with a white beard, and sharp staring eyes. He was named Freud. We sat up drinking all night, the four of us, just as you and I have done here tonight, and when dawn came they asked me my name and I told them that it was Vy-otin, and that I was of the old Ice-Hunter folk, that I had lived in a cavern during the cold times and lost my eye in a battle with a tiger of the snows. And I told them a thing or two more of what my first life had been like. Suddenly this Wagner cried out, ‘Wotan! You are Wotan!’ And Nietzsche said, ‘Yes, the very man.’ And old Freud began to laugh, and said that it was quite possible, that there could be no question that myth has its roots in reality and that I might well be the myth in the flesh.”

  “I have trouble understanding all this,” said Gilgamesh.