Gate of the Gods: Book 5 of The Windows of Heaven

by K. G. Powderly Jr.

  Tyr scrambled to catch up. “We have more than we can carry.”

  Psydon stopped. “Finally, some good news! Tell the men we march east tomorrow, at first light.”

  76

  U’Sumi’s thoughts raced to piece together what had happened at Uruk, but got nowhere beyond the big wave. When he and Haviri first encountered the muddy boy after beaching their skiff, they figured his experiencing the destruction of his home, likely with the death of his parents, must have traumatized him, or that perhaps he was simple-minded. Those explanations began to dissolve when the boy led them up the hill to what remained of a small palace built after the departure of the Sun Ships, but rather recently by the freshness of the bitumen cement used to mortar its baked bricks.

  There, a few other survivors huddled against the rains.

  U’Sumi clutched his hand-cannon beneath his uannu-gear, but kept his free hand visible to greet people. Two men and a woman, standing idly in the portico of the big building, paid him and Haviri no interest. Surely, the oddity of the sun ship’s storm gear should have captured at least some notice, but not here. He quietly prayed that Nimurta would be inside.

  The terrible realization came on gradually, like a snake coiling up U’Sumi’s spine. Even with so much of the settlement washed away by the wave; it made no sense for survivors to abandon Uruk, leaving only this tiny handful. Nor could this clutch of vagabonds be the only ones alive! Intact buildings on the only hill in the area should have been a beacon to refugees from all over the region. Certainly, if Nimurta had survived, he would have made the place his base of operations for rescue and relief to the delta islands, and farmlands throughout the Sumar.

  They entered the darkened hall, the interior of which flickered with moving shadows made menacing by the weak sputter of a couple clay cresset lamps. Only after they were fully inside did something attack from out of the blackness.

  An iron grip seized U’Sumi’s free arm from behind, while another elbow folded around his neck. U’Sumi slid his right arm, hidden under his uannu-slicker, and pressed the mouth of his hand-cannon underneath his own left armpit, into whoever had grabbed him, and fired.

  The explosion echoed inside the dripping chamber. U’Sumi spun around, and saw a man with a hole in his belly big enough to shove a log clear through. Only four others were in the hall, besides Haviri and the muddy boy. Two, who came at them from the front with spears, froze at the hand-cannon’s noise, and dropped their shafts. The three from outside ran in, but likewise halted when they saw what followed.

  The body dropped to the tile floor as U’Sumi held up his smoking weapon and yelled, “Stay back or die!”

  Haviri pulled out his quickfire lantern and lit everyone up.

  The muddy boy scurried for the shadows, where he huddled, whimpering. The three from the portico joined three other adults, and an older boy, who held up his arm to his elders, and barked some kind of command to them. The adults appeared to obey him, which meant that they fell back, away from U’Sumi and Haviri.

  The young man stepped cautiously forward, and slowly showed U’Sumi that his hands were empty. He said, “I Gilgamesh, son of divine Lugalbanda, son of Enmerkar, do greetings you-ward.”

  The muddy boy in the shadows cried, “Gueemish! Gueemish!”

  Gilgamesh eyed the boy fiercely to silence without speaking.

  U’Sumi did not lower his weapon. “What has happened here? Do you even know who we are?”

  Gilgamesh took a few seconds to answer, as if he needed to interpret the questions to himself because he found them unclear. “Huwawah sends flood to destroy us. Monster of Enlil is. You-ings of magic from the Absu. Not knowing me, you.”

  U’Sumi glanced at Haviri and shrugged, but he kept his weapon high. “This Absu, where is it?”

  “Under and beyond,” Gilgamesh motioned to the south. “You magic fish-dragons of water.”

  U’Sumi’s mind raced. He had departed from Uruk over twenty-five years ago, leaving a working port city, furnished with Khaldini, farmers, workers, fishermen, merchants, and artisans, only to return to ruins inhabited by mad men, and brutish children with no memory of him or the purpose for which their settlement existed. He decided to deal with the last thing the young man said, since it seemed that Gilgamesh was, in his own way, just as traumatized and delusional as the muddy boy. Since Gilgamesh also gave orders to the others, it seemed likely that whatever had happened, had affected the minds of the adults more than his.

  “We’re not magic water dragons, Gilgamesh. We’re just wearing uannu-hide rain gear.”

  The young man cocked his head. “Not dragons. You Uannu. Me understand. We sorry us try to hunt you for food. We thought you water dragons, maybe fish on land, walking. Not know. Food of us be gone, Uannu, and hungry, we. Father gone long time.”

  U’Sumi lowered his weapon. When he saw that the others did not move to attack him or Haviri, he holstered it under his rain gear. “I’m sorry I killed the man, Gilgamesh. We did not know how hard things were here.”

  Gilgamesh said something to the others. Two of the men slowly approached, pointing down at the body of their fallen comrade. U’Sumi and Haviri stepped away from the corpse, and allowed the men to carry him out.

  U’Sumi said, “We have food for you and your people, Gilgamesh, but just enough for a short time. Can you fish?”

  The young lord-ling—for so he carried himself—did not seem to understand the question.

  “Haviri, let’s give them our ration packs, and head back to Amirdu. We can offload some of our emergency rations for them. If they can’t fish, then maybe we can teach them.”

  Gilgamesh suddenly looked like the frightened boy he must have been. “Uannu not go! Please!”

  U’Sumi now doubted he could make himself understood, but he tried. “Uannu must go to—to Absu to bring back food. Tomorrow, I will teach you to catch fish, and to fix your homes. You then will tell me what happened to you and to this place.”

  Gilgamesh gave a petulant nod.

  Night began to fall with another steady rain, just as U’Sumi and Haviri reached their boat and paddled off into the fog.

  77

  The battle for the Central Plateau had cost much in blood and treasure—to both sides. Dead men and horses littered the rocky highland field like broken, bloodied rag dolls.

  Iyapeti the Elder stood on a low hill overlooking the carnage, and shook his head. The dead were all his children. More of his sons still would die before his work was finished. He spoke to the man standing next to him. “You say that he escaped, and that his eldest chieftain still lives, Iavanni?”

  The man by Iyapeti appeared old and bent, with stringy gray hair, his face a patchwork of scars and wrinkles. There simply was no getting used to that, because Iavanni was Iyapeti’s son, and not even his firstborn. It shamed the father to see his son standing there clothed in scraps of animal skins and rags, the hugest scar replacing what had once been a boy’s bright blue eye, in happier times—times softened by the touch of a young mother.

  Old-young Iavanni said, “Yes. He’s wounded, but he will live.”

  Iyapeti glared across the bloodied meadow, and thought sadly of his long-dead wife, who had mothered so many others who now lay dead on that field. “No,” he said in a voice icier than the increasingly frigid air, “he won’t. Bring him to me.”

  Iavanni hobbled off toward camp, favoring the leg a giant cave bear had nearly bitten off over a hundred years ago.

  The cold, dark sky had shown no sun since the falling star had streaked out of the north, spitting out chunks in huge flaming embers that either continued with the mother fireball into the south, or spattered to earth along its path to burn down forests, settlements, and grasslands alike.

  After years of skirmishing among the divided tribes of Iyapeti’s sons, between those allied with Kush’s Coalition, and those that remained loyal to their Patriarch, the full-scale battle for the northlands had happened almost by accident.

 
Since the falling star, rumors of dissension among the rebel tribes led by Magog had signaled Iyapeti to raise his war bands to full strength, and ride southeast from Iavanni’s western lake lands, up onto the Tukormag Plateau. Iyapeti had expected heavy resistance, but gained the plateau unchallenged. His frontier patrols then reported that the enemy had withdrawn into the east weeks before, for reasons unknown.

  Thuras had led his horse cavalry division deep into Magog’s territory before encountering any resistance. It seemed that the Tukormags had turned on the Ghimmuraya, who were also under attack by Magog’s own raiders.

  By the time Iyapeti caught up with Thuras’ advance force, a mounted melee had ensued. Thuras’ cavalry surrounded one side of the field, while Iavanni’s and Iyapeti’s took the rest. It would have gone well, had not Magog’s grandson brought reinforcements. Despite heavy losses on both sides, most of Iyapeti’s cavalry were mobile, forcing Magog to retreat, with a handful of remaining horsemen, into the northeast. Magog’s grandson, after nearly turning the battle, was not so lucky.

  Iavanni, Thuras, and Rhodan pulled the wounded prisoner by a rope to where Iyapeti stood on the rocky outcropping at the top of the hill. When they reached the Elder, burly Thuras kicked the back of the captive’s knee out, while dark, nimble Rhodan forced the man to kneel.

  Iyapeti glared at the heavyset man on the ground before him, and said, “Gogyu, son of Muskoya, son of Magog, why have you and your father robbed peace from the Earth; what incentive could Nimurta possibly have offered you for your aid in the destruction of civilization?”

  Gogyu smiled. “Ayy, mus puterev. Wee suvor.”

  Iavanni shrugged. “All the prisoners gibber this way, Pahpo. But he spoke understandably a short time ago, when he begged for his life!”

  The Elder said, “I see.”

  Iyapeti scrambled down from the small summit, and walked around behind the prisoner, pulling out his mace as he did so. “You will speak to me, Gogyu, as you spoke to them. You will answer for the bloodshed here.”

  The air itself seemed to change, as it sometimes tingled just before lightning struck. Gogyu’s voice became an inhuman roar. “You will not dwell in U’Sumi’s tents! I will take your sons as slaves, and I will be the destroyer of worlds!”

  Iyapeti swung the mace down on Gogyu’s head, and crushed the leering smile from his face in an explosion of blood and bone. The presence in the air vanished, leaving nothing but the icy wind.

  Iavanni’s single eye bulged from his face. “What was that?”

  Their father said, “A Watcher or some other foul spirit had taken him. But it could not have done so without his inviting it. Thuras, Keep your riders on patrol, to watch for Magog.”

  A huge, golden-haired mountain of a man, Thuras carried an enormous smith’s hammer for a weapon. He replied, “Aye, Sire. We sent him running with too few left, but we’ll make certain.”

  Iyapeti rested a hand on Thuras’ shoulder and squeezed. “I’m sure you will, son. The rest of the war band rides with me for the Agadae and Sumar at sun-up. It’s time that Kush and Nimurta pay for their treachery!”

  Then Iyapeti—the Father of them all—retreated to his tent, closed himself inside, wrapped himself in pelts, and cried himself to sleep, as would a small, orphaned child.

  And Cush procreated Nimrod. This one began to be a giant upon the earth. This one was a giant hunter with hounds before the Lord God. On account of this they shall say, “As Nimrod a giant hunter with hounds before the lord.” And it came to pass the beginning of his kingdom – Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Senaar. From out of that land came forth Asshur. And he built Nineveh, also in the midst of Calah – this is the city great.

  —Genesis 10:8-11,

  Apostolic Bible

  (A 21st century English rendering of the Greek Septuagint translation, circa 280 BC.)

  Author’s note: The Greek word for “hunter” includes the idea of hounds, while the Hebrew word does not specify. In Genesis, Asshur is the name of both the land of Assyria, and Asshur son of Shem, who fathered the Assyrians. If the translators assumed Asshur meant the nation, they rendered it “Assyria,” and Nimrod appeared to be the builder of Nineveh and the northern cities between Nineveh and Kalhu (Calah). One could just as easily assume the text intended the personal name of the man, given that national Assyria came much later. Then it shows Asshur (the man) leaving Shinar (Senaar) to found Nineveh and Kalhu, around the time Nimrod consolidated his power between Bab’Ilu and Uruk (Babel and Erech). Genesis can mean either possibility; the Hebrew does not specify, only the translator’s assumptions do. Both make historical sense. Even if Shem’s son Asshur built Nineveh, rather than Nimrod, the culture and religion were identical to that of Sumer and Akkad, except the Assyrians spoke late Akkadian rather than Sumerian. The Assyrians worshipped both Asshur and Ninurta as patron gods. KGP

  17

  Encounters

  78

  P’Tah-Tahut spotted the horsemen long before they saw his tiny party—or so he thought. He ordered his men behind a low hill, away from the river, while he climbed the grassy knoll on his belly to watch them pass.

  Only when he reached the top did he realize his mistake.

  Cold, sharp bronze touched the nape of his neck. A voice whispered, “Order your men to stand down. We mean you no harm. Turn over slowly.”

  Tahut gently rolled onto his back. The cold, gray clouds were hardly light enough to silhouette the head of the man standing over him. As the Vizier’s eyes adjusted, he recognized the face.

  “You are one of the sons of Assur; En’Tarah-ana is it not?”

  “Command your men, Vizier.”

  Tahut called out to his two companions, and hoped they both grasped his meaning better than they often had thus far on their journey. “Riding-men are friends! No kill. No hidings. Good men.”

  En’Tarah-ana smirked. “So the stories are true.” He stood aside, and sheathed his sword to allow the Vizier to stand up.

  “What stories?” Stories implied an ability to communicate.

  The riders joined Tahut’s men, just as their leaders reached the bottom of the hill.

  En’Tarah-ana answered, “Some of the workers my father loaned to Kush and Nimurta filtered home. All had survived the plague that you warned us about many months ago. Each had some degree of permanent speech damage. Some could only jabber. We had to drive several away. Most speak either a childish babble, or in a drunken slur, but they can still communicate a little. Of course, the fever hit us too, even before the workers returned. But the worst of it is over.”

  Tahut’s attention sharpened at that. “Over?” He immediately cursed himself inside because his inflection on that single word had just communicated volumes more than he had intended.

  A cold wind blew westward at them from the dark hills on the far side of the Hiddekhel River. En’Tarah-ana paused as if to let it pass, but when it did not, he raised his voice. “Most of the brick masons remember their trade. My father and my brother, Kullasina, have begun to build permanent camps—three to start with. I go south to tell your master, the En’Mer-Kar, that we have not forgotten our agreements. They name the outposts, as is fitting; one for my father, one for Nimurta, and the third is the Kalhu, which is the site for the northern Holy Gate of A’Nu.”

  Tahut locked his face not to show his fear. He realized that if Assur had survived the plague so much better in the north that he was already building baked brick cities, then he would soon overtake Ninurta, and likely demonstrate his “friendship” through conquest. “I would see your father.”

  En’Tarah-ana laughed. “Of course, my friend; by all means, continue your journey northward. On the way, you will pass our main caravan. Do not let it trouble you; we heard that the plague struck the Agadae and Sumar hard, and my father sends aid. After you pass the caravan, you will come to the settlement of Assur first, on this bank of the river. To reach the Kalhu and Ninuwa, you must cross to the east bank, and cont
inue north for many days. I hope you will not take it amiss if I continue southward, for my orders are to go to the aid of Kush.”

  P’Tah-Tahut nearly panicked at the realization that Assur likely had some idea how bad it was in the South from the returning workers. He did not want En’Tarah-ana to spy out exactly how weak Kush had become, but he could not stop him, and any attempt to dissuade him would look suspicious—enough to warrant the Assurim killing him on the spot. Turning back would be a tacit admission that the South was extremely vulnerable!

  En’Tara-ana undid a silver clasp from his mantle, and handed it to Tahut. “Show this to my caravan when you meet it. They will let you pass.”

  P’Tah-Tahut bowed, and said, “Thank you,” while he wondered if the clasp might contain an unwelcome pre-arranged command to the larger force that pushed south toward a defenseless Agadae and Sumar.

  79

  Kush heard speech from another that he could understand for the first time. He remembered the ziggurat—all life began at the Divine Gate. Nothing prior to the Sacred Mound had existed, only primordial waters. Around him, men had jabbered as apes, shrieking and moaning amid the terrible lights. Only Kush had the gift of true speech—until now.

  Time passed. The ape-men made ape law, but none of it applied to Kush, who sat alone. Then they placed him in a boat with other men and a woman, but they spoke only as apes, and were thus animals made to appear as men—even the woman—especially the woman; golden, but empty.

  Then there was the Pale One; the monster he had somehow made back… when?

  A Before.

  But that was gone.

  Now a speaker had spoken the speech of a man, and Kush was unsure if he had not dreamt it.

  “Lord Kush, you are a great father of men,” the Voice said.