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

by K. G. Powderly Jr.

  He said, “How does this Ursunabi cross the waters then?”

  “Ursunabi has magic stone things that he drops into the water on lines. He tells me they help him steer his boat through waters of death. He is the Boatman of Utana’Pishti, Lord of Tel’Muhn. Perhaps he will grant you passage. He is in the forest behind the village, picking mint. Go see him.”

  “But what if I can’t find him?”

  Siduri rolled her eyes. “Look, Gilgamesh, the magic stone things are with Ursunabi, and he is in the woods picking mint! Go see him! If possible, cross over with him, if not, turn back!”

  The sullen giant growled, got up, and drew his dagger from his ratty loincloth. He trudged off toward the forest behind the village.

  Siduri hoped Ursunabi would not be too hard on the big oaf. She shrugged, and went back to arranging her pot stand.

  119

  Ashort way into the woods, Gilgamesh heard a chisel striking rock. He ran toward the noise, dagger in hand. When he neared the source of the sound, he slowed down long enough to take stock of the situation.

  While not quite as tall as Gilgamesh, Ursunabi the Boatman’s sculpted muscles were younger, better fed, and better worked—at least recently. Surrounded by several baskets of freshly picked mint, the Boatman cut a hole into one end of a slab of stone that he had just pried from a rock formation projecting about man-height from the base of a wooded foothill. Two other such stones, each with holes at one end, lay by the mint baskets.

  Gilgamesh did not want to go with only a dagger, close-quarters, at a man near his own size armed with a hammer and chisel. He replaced the knife, and rushed the clearing. In a fluid motion, he scooped up both flat stones by the holes, to use as shield and cudgel, swinging one at Ursunabi’s head. The Boatman ducked, and the flat stone smashed on the outcropping. When Gilgamesh hurled the other, and drew his dagger, Ursunabi swung his hammer, shattering the stone in an explosion of shards.

  A sliver of rock flew into Gilgamesh’s eye, after which the Boatman disarmed him with his chisel, and kicked his right knee in. Gilgamesh tumbled to the dirt in more pain than he had ever known, kneecap split. He screamed worse than Inana had that time he had hurled the basket of bull guts all over her face and breasts, telling her it was the Bull of Heaven.

  Ursunabi now held his gleaming chisel of rare, double-strength zabar-metal like a knife in one hand, and his hammer in the other. “What’s the matter with you, coming at me like that?”

  Gilgamesh clutched his knee and howled. He had nothing left. He complained of Inana, moaned over Enkidu, and finished with, “I’m sorry, but to Dilmun I must go, to see Zuisudra, and find the secret of eternal life!” By this time, it sounded stupid even to him.

  “Why didn’t you just ask, you big moron? I’d’ave taken you!”

  The scorpion monsters were right. Gilgamesh was in no part a god, and now he wasn’t even a man—just a blubbering, overgrown child too used to always having his own way. Now, he had just ruined his last chance to find immortality. “Fool have I been! Please, sorry I am that I tried to force you! Can you pity a wretched man of sick heart, and take me across? I will pay you the price of a lugal’s ransom. Tell me, please, what prevents you?”

  Ursunabi said. “Your own hands prevent me! You’ve smashed my stone things, and this rock outcropping is all chiseled out! Let me bind your leg. When you can stand, we’ll find another rock face, and you can chisel me three new anchor stones. Make sure you get the holes for the retaining ropes right! Then you can make me a couple extra oars! I’ll teach you how.”

  “Can you not make the magic stone things yourself?”

  “I can, but you’re such a moron, that I won’t!” Ursunabi went to a satchel among the mint baskets, and pulled out a change of clothing. He set and bound Gilgamesh’s kneecap, helped him up, and handed him a broken branch to use as a cane. “There’s another outcrop just through those trees. I’ll carry the tools until we get there. ‘Make the stone things myself!’ What’s the matter with you? I should leave you for the jackals to eat.”

  Gilgamesh had known something was the matter with him for a long time; it just kept taking so many different forms that it surprised him at every turn, when it popped out in some new way. “I would deserve it. I know. Thank you for not jackal-meating me.”

  The Boatman pointed to the trees, and Gilgamesh hobbled forward, clenching his jaws to keep from screaming at the pain.

  120

  Ursunabi’s boat glided over the Absu, driven by a sudden, steady wind off the eastern mountains, which had now slid beneath the horizon. The vessel reminded Gilgamesh of the square-hulled fishing boats common in Uruk and Kuara, except that it had sleeker lines, and a sophisticated system of hoists and sails the likes of which he had never seen before.

  The sun was high, and the air cool.

  Ursunabi said, “Hoist in that drogue stone aft, Gilgamesh, we have wind now, and I don’t want the southeastward current to take us off course.”

  “My leg hurts; can’t you hoist it?”

  Ursunabi raised his eyebrow. “Your knee will likely hurt for the rest of your life. It’s wrapped tight with healing herbs that take the pain down some. I need to stay on the tiller, and watch the boom. You don’t need your leg to hoist the stone, just the arm winch!”

  “Fine; sorryness is.” Gilgamesh began turning the odd, near magical, wheel-like device, which spooled in the stone’s line almost effortlessly. When the drogue came flush against the stern, he reached over the side, and slid it onto its resting hook. Then he took in the remaining rope, as Ursunabi had shown him, and relaxed back into his seat.

  Gilgamesh had come to respect the Boatman, if not to even like him, despite the kneecap. He wished he knew that the feeling was mutual, but could not conceive of any reason why it should be. He had remained mostly silent since they had left Siduri’s Village for that reason. Now, he had missed human conversation for so long that he wanted to risk making some.

  “Is the asking of questions tiresome to you?”

  Ursunabi smiled briefly. “Not really. Ask away.”

  “How came you to be the honored Boatman of Utana’Pishti?”

  Warmth filled the sailor’s eyes that made them seem familiar somehow. “He and his wife raised me as a son. They and Father Zuisudra adopted me when I was a boy, on the ship from Uruk.”

  “You come from Uruk, my city?”

  “Originally. I could barely speak in those days. When Zuisudra and his son saw that I was an orphan, and that none of the other settlers would have anything to do with me, they took me as their own. Zuisudra named me Ursunabi, he said after a great boatman who lived before the Deluge that destroyed the olden world. Before that, the only name I had was Mud Boy.”

  Gilgamesh’s heart raced. “Mud Boy? I knew a boy, during the Dark Time of the Swelling Rivers, when I was a youth, who used to help get food when the Uruk people starved. Everyone called him ‘Mud Boy’ because he was always muddy, and he answered to nothing else. He was a good sort. Used to call me ‘Gueemish,’ he did, because he couldn’t say Gilgamesh.”

  Ursunabi’s smile grew warmer, and showed teeth. “Gueemish! That was me; I was Mud Boy! You rescued me from some men who… well; let’s just say they took advantage of my youth and trusting nature. I’m very glad I didn’t leave you to the jackals.”

  Gilgamesh laughed. “Me too! How came you to speak so well—better even than me?”

  “Zuisudra prayed for me, and the Creator God healed my mind, and gave me the gift of speech as the Firstborn have it.”

  Gilgamesh could not follow the Boatman’s dialect here, particularly the part after “creating-god,” but he nodded. Zuisudra has life! Anyone making Mud Boy into Ursunabi has power!

  Ursunabi said, “Forgive me for the knee-cap. You, especially, deserved better from me.”

  Gilgamesh had not felt such kindness since Enkidu lived. “There is nothing to forgive. I attacked you as an enemy, when I had power to be friend. Not seeing my friend is
a bad hardness on me since Enkidu died.”

  “So you’ve said. Still, you protected me once when I could not protect myself. You deserved better from me.”

  Ursunabi’s admission should have made Gilgamesh feel vindicated. Instead, he felt both humbled and honored.

  A cloudbank swallowed the afternoon sun.

  Gilgamesh said, “Will you speak to Zuisudra for me, and ask him to see my face?”

  “I would if I could, friend, but Zuisudra went to be with his fathers a little over a year after the ship from Uruk dropped us at Tel’Muhn. That was over a hundred and forty years ago.”

  Hope, then horror, hope, then horror, hope, then horror—all over again! Gilgamesh wailed, “‘Went to be with fathers’ is just pretty way to say he’s dead! How can Zuisudra be a god with eternal life if he’s dead?”

  “Maybe eternal life isn’t quite what you think it is, Gilgamesh.”

  “Empty priest-words! Priests say ‘celebrate,’ when they mean ‘fast and grovel!’ Priests say, ‘life,’ when they really mean ‘misery and death!’”

  The wind picked up as the clouds sank darker.

  Ursunabi said, “That’s how it is with priests, Gilgamesh; but not with Zuisudra, nor with Utana’Pishti and Mother, and not with me. Utana’Pishti and Mother are older than this world—over five hundred years old! Zuisudra went to his fathers at an age of almost a thousand! Does anyone except the Firstborn live that long these days?”

  “Only gods or maybe half-gods—I’m listening.”

  “Their age may not be the point, Gilgamesh. I think you should speak with Utana’Pishti and Mother. They can guide you better than I can. They both came over on the Boat of a Million Years with Zuisudra.”

  Gilgamesh remembered that Ursunabi had once been Mud Boy, and silenced his rage. One thing he had learned in his travels was how many things there were that he still did not understand. Perhaps this was one of them. Perhaps it was time to listen, lest fate take his other kneecap, or worse.

  The storm broke suddenly, and with it, Gilgamesh saw the swift shadow of Lotan slide by underneath the boat. He turned to look at the waters on the other side, and saw the serpent raise its head, and slap the waves with one of its flippers.

  Gilgamesh screamed, “The Waters of Death are about us! Tiamat’s son, Lotan comes to drag us into its murky depths!”

  Ursunabi stood and watched Lotan sound after a school of fish. He said, “What are you afraid of? It’s just a small leviathan—you don’t see many of them anymore. The wind’s kicking up, is all.”

  Gilgamesh cowered down beneath the boat’s gunwales and fell into a dismal sleep filled with foaming shame. Nightmares cursed him with angry, mocking faces that all had devouring Lotan teeth.

  121

  The man called Utana’Pishti seemed displeased. He and Ursunabi exchanged words by the greenery above Dilmun’s quaint waterfront.

  Gilgamesh feared that the man who had achieved godhood would not see his face. Nevertheless, he stood back on the pier, by the boat, where Ursunabi had told him to wait. It surprised Gilgamesh how Ursunabi towered over the god—Utana’Pishti seemed but a wiry man of small frame, and dark skin; no older than Ursunabi, with only the slightest hint of silver in the hair at his ears, and in a thin beard that grew only around his mouth.

  After several minutes, Utana’Pishti’s demeanor changed. He smiled warmly, and embraced Ursunabi as a father would his son. Ursunabi then returned to Gilgamesh on the dock.

  “Well?”

  The Boatman chuckled. “Of course he’ll see you. He was just a little upset and worried when he saw a stranger at the tiller from afar. He was afraid you’d pirated the boat—you know how fathers worry about sons.”

  Actually, Gilgamesh had no knowledge of such things. He remembered little before the time when the divine being had taken over his father. Whatever good things Lugalbanda had given him, (and there had been a number), being concerned for his son’s safety had never been one of them. Gilgamesh remembered feeling something akin to relief when Lugalbanda had suddenly deserted Uruk, his mother, and him, which must have been about a generation ago. Time had always been hard for him to track.

  Lugalbanda must have ruled Uruk many centuries, yet Gilgamesh remembered all the way back to when Enmerkar and Meshkiagasher had reigned. Uruk’s present Lugal had never understood why he felt such ambivalence toward his unique father, or why he had such difficulty tracking the passage of time, which seemed to flow faster at some locations than at others. Until recently, both those things had seemed normal.

  Perhaps Dilmun, a place of the gods, did funny things to time. Maybe it had something to do with them living forever, and yet still passing on to their fathers, as Zuisudra had. Maybe sometimes what seemed either/or really had a both/and-ness that only gods understood.

  Ursunabi helped his friend hobble up from the docks, onto a low mound covered in luxuriant date palms and roses. A palace of orange baked-clay brick sat at the flattened top of the hill, bigger even than the E-Anna.

  Utana-Pishti stood by large red roses along the path up to the house, and turned to greet Gilgamesh. His voice had both warmth and strength—two things the Lugal of Uruk rarely heard together. “Welcome to Tel’Muhn, Gilgamesh; has your father sent you to end our exile, or to join it?”

  Gilgamesh bowed. “My father vanished long ago. I did not know of exiles. I was told the gods had taken you to holy Dilmun to make you into gods with them. My father never told me where Dilmun was. I learned only from Siduri. Lugalbanda spoke of it only once. I now rule Uruk. If you wish to return, I welcome you.”

  Utana’Pishti smiled, showing pearly white teeth. “In that case, you shall know my name, and eat in friendship at my table. My wife shall tend your wounds.”

  “You are kind. But is not your name Utana’Pishti?”

  The three went slowly, Ursunabi helping Gilgamesh up the hill.

  “The colonists of Tel’Muhn call me that—more of a title, really. They say it means Far-Seeing One, but I’m not so sure the name fits. My name is Khumi, son of A’Nu-Ahki, whom people called the ‘Zhui’Sudra’ because he is father of all living, and taught us all the way of eternal life.”

  Gilgamesh could not stop his tears. “Father Khnum, it is the secret of eternal life that I seek, for it has been forgotten! It is because Enkidu, my friend whom I loved as a brother, has turned to clay! Am I not like him? Will I fall to a wasting sickness as he did, never to rise again?” He went on to tell of his journeys and sorrows, and stopped only when they reached the palace doors.

  There a tiny woman met them, who kissed Father Khnum, and then guided Gilgamesh to a couch in their greeting chamber. “You sit down there, young man, and let me take care of that leg. How did such a thing happen?”

  Gilgamesh and Ursunabi exchanged glances, smiled, and Gilgamesh answered, “My own foolishness, Great Lady…”

  “Call me Mother Tiva; everyone does,” the woman said as she began to unwrap the bandage ties Ursunabi had set Gilgamesh’s knee with.

  Father Khnum poured Gilgamesh a goblet of unmixed date liquor. “Drink this, son; it will dull the pain while she adjusts the bones, and fixes up a brace for them.”

  Gilgamesh gladly received the cup, though he could not understand a word Father Khnum had said after she. It did not take Mother Tiva long to make him glad for Father Khnum’s date liquor, however.

  Mother Tiva’s deft little hands produced a couple wooden brackets with eyots from a chest she kept by the door. Gilgamesh figured she was the practicing healer for all of Dilmun, when she returned with the C-shaped brackets, some down-filled pads, and a small hemp line.

  When she had laid out the pieces on the couch, she went again for some boiled water, with which she cleaned Gilgamesh’s swollen knee area. Then she applied a pungent liniment, which took down the pain even better than the date liquor. She laid the pads over his knee, and fastened the brackets on either side of his kneecap, feeding the line through the eyots, which forced the bones ba
ck together into their proper alignment.

  All the while, Father Khnum plied Gilgamesh with questions, in part it seemed to keep his mind off the pain, and because the elder appeared to have an intense interest in news of the outside world.

  “The ships of Uruk never come as far as Tel’Muhn anymore,” said Khnum. “They only go as far as Siduri’s Haven; and that, infrequently—unless you noticed changes on your trip, Ursunabi.”

  The Boatman shook his head. “Siduri complained that the ships from Uruk and Kuara grow less frequent each year.”

  Gilgamesh clenched his teeth as Mother Tiva tightened his knee brace. He said, “I’ve been away from Uruk—perhaps a few years. When I left, ships went regularly to the Elammi Coast. I think maybe I’ve been away too long.”

  Mother Tiva said, “And you’ll be away at least another couple months here, if you want that leg to heal properly.”

  Father Khnum said, “She’s right. I’ll have Ursunabi take you back to Uruk quickly, once you can travel. We may take you up on your offer to return from exile, too.”

  Gilgamesh nodded. “That pleases me.”

  Khnum said, “Can you tell us what has happened in the world since we went to exile? News is sparse, and Siduri’s Haven is almost as far away from the Sumar as Tel’Muhn. The good Ale Wife is not much interested in the affairs of the Riverlands, unless it is to buy grain. In the days when your father exiled my wife and me, there was a city several days north of Uruk, called Surupag. Can you tell me if it still exists, and what became of its people? There had also been a war against Kish. How did that end?”

  Gilgamesh did not want to answer, but felt honor-bound to do so. “You speak of things very long ago, from my boyhood, but I shall try to answer goodly. My grandfather, Enmerkar, made war on the Lord of Arrata, and exiled him to Shurupak when I was very young. Enmerkar ruled Uruk and Kish back then, by the spirit and power of Ninurta and Nuddimmud. Then a time of great darkness and confusion came over all the land. This forced my father, Lugalbanda, who was also an invisible being, to rule in Uruk, while Enmerkar ruled Kish. But Enmerkar took the rulership from Kish to Uruk, where he built up E’Anna. His father, Meshkiaj-gasher had come to Uruk before him; but he disappeared into the sea. Enmerkar also went to sea in search of him, never to return.”