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

by K. G. Powderly Jr.

  Khnum said, “It was on the ship of Ninurta—who is called En’Mer-Kar—that my wife, my father, and I were taken against our will. En’Mer-Kar left us here with some settlers, and went on to the Great South Ocean with the other colonists, never to return.”

  Gilgamesh nodded. “Ah, yes; after that, divine Lugalbanda ruled many centuries in Uruk, making war with Kish. The city of Shurupak you speak of was taken, and its people driven off. They worshipped the monster Huwawah, who sends floods of Enlil, and in Uruk, floods are not such a good thing.” He did not tell them how he and Enkidu had made an expedition against Huwawah in the Cedar Forest of the Mountains in the Far West, nor how they had killed him—or at least one of his hairy demons. He sensed somehow that it would displease Father Khnum and Mother Tiva.

  Father Khnum knit his brow. “We have lived on Tel’Muhn a little over a hundred and forty years, yet Lugalbanda ruled Uruk after we left for many centuries?”

  His statement surprised Gilgamesh. “Time passes different for me in different places; fast in some, slow in others, and in other places, it seems to go in circles—I really hate it when that happens; hours get stuck for days sometimes. You are a god, so perhaps you do not feel time passing so hard?”

  Gilgamesh grew uncomfortable at the way that Mother Tiva, Father Khnum, and Ursunabi glanced at one another.

  Father Khnum said, “We have not noticed this thing with the way time passes, but we are not gods, only men, Gilgamesh.”

  Gilgamesh was speechless. He had sensed something different with the way time felt during his crossing of the Absu with Ursunabi, but he had attributed it to its most likely cause; that they were crossing the Waters of Death, and that the Lord of Dilmun was a god. At the very least, time at sea must have been passing either faster or slower than time in the Mountains of Mashu. To learn now that Utana’Pishti was not even a god, threw Gilgamesh into confusion. Perhaps Father Khnum is a god, as Lugalbanda said, but he simply does not know of his own divinity, or maybe only Zuisudra was a god.

  Mother Tiva gave a final turn on tightening Gilgamesh’s knee brace, and stood. “There. You should find that if your leg is not more comfortable, it should at least be more workable. Perhaps it would be better for you to rest a little before we eat. You’ve had a rough trip. You may bathe with your brace on, but I should adjust it afterward if you do. We can speak of these other things later, when everyone is full and refreshed.”

  Father Khnum smiled and nodded. “I think Mother is right.”

  122

  Tiva caught Khumi outside in the courtyard garden, after Gilgamesh started snoring, and Ursunabi went down to the harbor to unload the boat.

  She felt uneasy about their strange visitor, but did not want to make too much of it. “The friends boys bring home to their parents; the Lugal of Uruk! How did that happen?”

  Khumi laughed. “I recall bringing you home to my folks in pretty much the same way.”

  Tiva smiled. “Got me there; but what’s all this about ‘time running faster, slower, or in circles in different places?’”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “I wish T’Qinna was here. Maybe it’s a symptom of the Madness Plague; Gilgamesh was only a boy when it happened, but he was older than Ursunabi. So far, Ursunabi is the only one I’ve ever seen make a full recovery. I remember T’Qinna mentioning once that the meanings of language tie together with all our thinking; that confusing the meaning of language at its source—the mind—would also have many strange side effects. Maybe this time thing of Gilgamesh is one of them.”

  Khumi picked a salmon-colored rose, and placed in her hair. “Makes sense; his story’s too bizarre to be a deliberate lie; still, can we trust him?”

  Tiva smiled and kissed his cheek for the rose. “Can we afford not to? He may be our only chance of finding out what happened to the others, and meeting up with them again.”

  “I’m not so hopeful. You heard what he said about Surupag—Lugalbanda drove its people away. If it were simply a matter of going back, Ursunabi could have taken us at any time. It’s a hostile shore controlled by enemies that are more than human. Pahp said as much. Gilgamesh is still a child of the Enemy.”

  “Weren’t we all at one time? He seems genuinely curious, and wants to know about eternal life. Isn’t Enlil just the way the Maddened Ones pronounce El-N’Lil? Maybe some of them still remember, at least in part.”

  Khumi’s jaws tightened. “Yes, and Huwawah is how many of them pronounce E’Yahavah, whom Gilgamesh called a ‘monster.’”

  “That’s what Lugalbanda and Ninurta taught him to believe when he was only a boy; what if we can teach him differently? He’s questioning things—life, death, reality. How long has it been since we’ve encountered anyone who is actually questioning things? None of the colonists here do.”

  “I wish U’Sumi was here; he was always better at this sort of thing than I was.”

  Tiva kissed his cheek. “You’ll do fine. Tell him our story. Be honest with him, but gently.”

  Khumi sighed. “How do I gently inform him that he’s caught in a web woven long before any of us were born, and that his father lied to him about the most important of all things, and that his dead friend is beyond his reach, and past help?”

  She said, “Carefully and with much prayer beforehand.”

  123

  After dinner, Gilgamesh spoke to Utana’Pishti, who saw things faraway. Mother Tiva retired, and Ursunabi dozed.

  Gilgamesh had to make sense of things, and could think of no other way to do it than to ask straight-out. “I have been looking at you, but your appearance is not strange, the way I expected. Instead, you are like me! I confess—may it not anger you, for I have turned from my foolishness—but, at first, I had made up my mind to fight with you. Instead, my limbs are useless. Please tell me, how is it that you stand in the Assembly of the Gods, and have found life?”

  Father Khnum smiled; his eyes bright with a kindly fire. “I’m not a god, but I do know the Creator. I will reveal to you something, Gilgamesh; that these days must seem like a hidden thing. Surupag—that city on the bank of the Ufratsi we mentioned—was named after another city that existed long ago; before the Flood sent from A’Nu, El-N’lil, and the Divine Word-speaker to destroy the World-that-Was because of its evil. My father, whom you call ‘Zuisudra,’ once judged in that old city, before the Deluge. The Word-speaker…”

  Gilgamesh tried to listen, but Father Khnum said words strangely, and named the names of the gods in a foreign way that was difficult to follow. He seemed to speak of Anu and Enlil, but “Word-speak” made no sense to Gilgamesh. Was the elder talking about some oath of secrecy, taken by Anu or advised by Enlil, or was it the name of a third god? He was afraid to interrupt Father Khnum to find out, lest he be thought callow.

  Much of the Utana’Pishti’s account of the Great Flood that had destroyed his world, and created Gilgamesh’s was also difficult to grasp—especially the part where he told how he built the ship.

  Did Father Khnum call the god who warned him to build the ship Ea, E’Ya, or Y’Wa? The name seemed to change each time he said it. It also was not clear if the god (whoever he was) had told him to build the ship from pieces of his house, or if the ship was built from funds that belonged to Zuisudra’s household. If Gilgamesh stopped to think about things, he missed what Father Khnum said next. Still, it would be disrespectful to interrupt.

  Father Khnum spoke long into the night, until his eyes grew heavy. Gilgamesh figured he could ask questions tomorrow.

  124

  Tiva asked how Khumi’s talk with Gilgamesh went last night.

  Her husband stretched as he rose from their divan. The golden morning sun off the water shone in through the window like honey mead. “Good. He listened attentively enough.”

  She smiled at him and tweaked his nose with her finger. “Yes, but did he respond, or ask any questions?”

  He rubbed his nose. “No, but I figured he was tired, and engrossed in the story.” />
  Tiva kissed his forehead. “Maybe.”

  Khumi rose to build up the hearth fire for tea.

  He said, “You don’t sound so sure.”

  “He doesn’t follow our speech completely; you know how their attention span is reduced. He might have been trying to be polite.”

  The fire leaped to life with a little splash of olive oil.

  Khumi sighed. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

  She wrapped her arm in his. “We can talk more. There’s time to make things clearer. At least he seems to feel good about us.”

  A cloud passed before the morning sun, darkening the room—at least, that was what Tiva thought, until she began to hear a low hum. The creeping dread wormed its way up her spine.

  Then the shrieking started from the guest chamber, where they had quartered Gilgamesh. Tiva had not heard such inhuman howling since she had lived at Grove Hollow, and one of her friends were seized by the Watchers, through the spell of a hypnotic mushroom they used to eat. She and Khumi ran into the guest chamber, and stopped dead at the curtain.

  Gilgamesh howled, his eyes bulging triple their normal size, jaws distended to make his mouth unnaturally large. His body floated in mid-air, a cubit off the couch. The shadow outside deepened as another voice that was not that of Gilgamesh spoke though his mouth.

  “Uruk, Eridu, and Kuara are mine! I am the god! Gilgamesh is to Uruk, and Uruk is to me! I am all! I am Pahn!”

  Tiva saw flame in her husband’s eyes—a flame she had seen once before, in the eyes of his father, the night A’Nu-Ahki had rescued her from this same malevolent spirit, in another world. That flame in those eyes made her want to weep with joy.

  Khumi stepped between her and the Thing that had tormented her so much of her life. Her husband roared over the noise of the Monster, “This house rests in E’Yahavah’s shadow, and this man is my guest! Get out of my house, and may the wrath of E’Yahavah seize you for the darkest pits!”

  Gilgamesh bellowed, “Pits are not now, but I go from your house because need draws me elsewhere! This is not finished!”

  The Giant from Uruk fell with a great crash.

  Tiva rushed around Khumi to Gilgamesh’s aid, but found him in a deep sleep. Both she and her husband checked his bones, and discovered three cracked ribs, and the knee brace had to be re-set. Gilgamesh never woke, or even stirred, while they worked over him. Only his slow breathing told Tiva he was even alive.

  When they could do no more, Tiva pulled her husband with her, back to their own bedchamber, where she told him that marrying him was the smartest, most wonderful thing she had ever done.

  Then terrified colonists came to their door, shouting of a horrible sky-demon that had briefly hovered over Tel’Muhn, casting evil shadows.

  The first Sumerian literary texts are dated to 2600 BC, including a number of hymns and even some proverbs. Remember, this does not mean that they were not writing literary texts before 2600 BC, it is only that none have been discovered earlier than this, yet. At the end of each of these literary tablets we find a statement as follows:

  “PN wrote this tablet.” [PN represents the text’s author, or copyist—KGP]

  What is particularly significant about this is that although the inscriptions are written in Sumerian, the names of the scribes are already SEMITIC. Already, at the earliest examples of Sumerian texts that have survived, we are at the place where we are witnessing the beginning of the end of Sumerian power and influence.

  The language of Akkadian (better known to non-specialists by its two dialects, Assyrian and Babylonian) is already becoming increasingly important.

  —History of the Sumerian Language

  World History International,

  History-World.org

  23

  Redeployment

  125

  The goddess now called Ishtar by the Akkadians, but Inana by the Kengiru, lazed on her couch with one of her legs draped over its sculpted arm. The cool evening breeze blew in through the silken curtains of her new ziggurat-top jipar, attached to the E’Anna Temple overlooking the growing city. From her recline, she effectively ruled Uruk and its tributaries through her son, who had also become her husband by way of a creative innovation she had made to the Rite of Divine Marriage, giving her old title of Queen Mother a whole new meaning.

  The vision-world enveloped her again, as it had so often since she had first begun her divine transformation, long ago. Time was almost meaningless now. The Voices were everything—especially that of En-Ki, his heavenly Igigi, and his Anunnaki.

  “Gilgamesh returns with the Ancient Enemy,” whispered the many shadows. The flickering of Ishtar’s great golden oil lamp gave them forms like an angry army of horned worms writhing from the darkness. The effect of the impression both delighted and horrified her on two entirely separated levels of consciousness. The delight, as always, won out—the Goddess embraced dark things to add to her ever-growing power. Had she not entered Under-world itself to retrieve her son/husband from the clutches of her sister Ereshkigal? The squirming shades coalesced into a single form.

  The pale little man with huge dark eyes stood by her couch again; the form En-Ki’s emissaries often took when they kept her company on the nights Dumuzi’s duties kept him away. He spoke without speaking. “Time is short, mighty Ishtar, sacred Inana.”

  She sat up and closed her robe. “Gilgamesh lives?”

  “Yes. And he has been very foolish.”

  “Not having to tell me twice!”

  The seemingly frail child-man-ancient placed a polypy finger on her arm. “He shall pay for his insolence to you and the other gods. But he must rule Uruk again briefly. I have a better kingdom for you and Dumuzi.”

  “Gilgamesh, rule again Uruk? Never!” Inana shrieked. “Father, restore to me the Bull of Heaven, so he can kill Gilgamesh! Give me Bull of Heaven, or I will knock down the Gates of Under-world, I smash door posts, and leave the doors flat down, and will let the dead go up to eat the living!”

  The little man seemed to grow, as his mouth opened to reveal rows of venomous, needle-sharp teeth. “You must search for Ninurta, and put together the mystery of where he has gone. You shall find parts of his story in many places, like a puzzle. His name shall be called Osiru—the Uniter.”

  “I not like puzzles! Like having my E’Anna Temple! Want Bull of Heaven back from dead, Gilgamesh to kill!”

  En-Ki’s mouth opened wider, his jaw stretching downward as a snake’s, until his lower teeth were level with his gut. A rank wind billowed from his breath, with a howl that made Inana cower back down into her couch. “You will rule all, because your cult spreads to all! Do not defy me, or another Goddess I will find! Then the dead will outnumber the living!”

  Inana covered her face with her hands, but the terror of En-ki blasted through in an image of devouring worms and undying flame on the blood-red insides of her eyelids, where armies of the rotting dead feasted on Uruk’s people—Inana among them. She could not withstand En-Ki.

  She screamed, “I do your mustings to be the Goddess! I will put the pieces of Ninurta’s scattered parts back together as Osiru! Must I go to Under-world for him too, as I did for young Dumuzi?”

  The noise ceased, and the blinding light faded. Ishtar-Inana removed her hands from her face, and saw only the flickering of her over-sized lamp inside the fluttering curtains of her shrine.

  En-Ki had vanished, except for his voice inside her. “Take Dumuzi with you into exile when Gilgamesh comes. I will not let him kill you or the young man. What seems like defeat now will turn into victory for you, when you put together Ninurta as Osiru in a far-off land. You will see how far your cult has spread, and how all the world worships you under many names. Gilgamesh will pay for his insolence to you. Other kingdoms await you, and here you will be worshipped by all.”

  Ishtar forced herself to calm down. “It shall be as En-Ki commands.”

  126

  The Monster sustained severe wounds attempting to seiz
e Gilgamesh from one of the last remaining Enemy strongholds on Earth. That gambit had failed, except for a tiny suggestion successfully planted inside the big man’s mind, before the Enemy wrenched Gilgamesh free.

  Worse, Tiva’s husband had changed in surprising ways since their last encounter. The Monster had not expected him to strengthen himself in the Ancient Enemy so securely; the ridiculous Little Boat-builder had never done that before!

  The being once called Pahn, and by many other names, knew it was sinking into a dormancy that might last centuries. The non-material streams of information that made up its rather minimal personality needed to resequence on the surface of an inter-spatial ether layer until it gained enough coherence to re-synchronize with human thought waves. The Ancient Enemy had designed the Monster’s code matrices to do this after major pattern disruptions.

  Humans might call it healing, but to Pahn it seemed more like automatically self-editing damaged text layers. The Monster could not project its own codes into human thought waves without achieving synchronicity. It must lurk in empty silence until it could. Although it helped while executing its role among men, the Monster ultimately did not think in human terms. It was, however, finite in its capabilities, and those capabilities now leaked away much as consciousness slipped into a fevered sleep. Only intense concentration kept Pahn “awake.”