Pahn calmed itself. The surge might be just the meandering gate-creature, or it might be an Enemy sentinel. Whatever it was, the signature of its near proximity was powerful—if his gate-creature, then it solved Pahn’s dormancy problems. Pan-dimensional energies and symbiotic organelles inside even a small gate-sentinel would enable rapid resequencing of the Monster’s disrupted lines of code, and provide much-needed power renewal—enough even to establish a brief quasi-materiality, if necessary.
Pahn did not want to think of what it would mean if the surge proved to be an enemy sentinel, much less the vanguard units of the feared counter-offensive.
The Monster cautiously slid up out of between-space and detected a familiar signal, chaotic, mad, and magnificent. Its own gate-creature grazed, untethered, on a rich blast of solar wind at the edge of Earth’s gravity well. Pahn gently transmitted the information stream that constituted its person into the cilia-like ether-fibers along the gate-creature’s surface.
Once merged with the gate-sentinel—one of the few remaining, comfortably equipped, vintage Second Insurrection ones—Pahn allowed the creature’s transit pouch transcription organelles to resequence its codes from the last backed-up operations matrix, made just before attacking Tel’Muhn.
The Monster would quickly be ready for its new role in meeting the anticipated offensive. The gate-sentinel also contained freshly transmitted orders from En-Ki, which the creature automatically wove into Pahn’s living code streams.
En-Ki had noticed the same situation Pahn had. They would not wait for the Enemy to strike first.
127
Tiva felt the shadow fall over them when Ursunabi’s boat was still two days out from Uruk. It seemed that Gilgamesh’s idea that different spirits ruled over different geographic locations had some truth to it. Either that or she was experiencing one leviathan of a bad change-of-life mood swing. She remembered what A’Nu-Ahki had said, when they had left the city almost a hundred and fifty years ago: E’Yahavah had given Uruk over to the Anunnaki by design. She did not relish going there, even if Gilgamesh intended to change things.
The big Lugal seemed like a new man, although Tiva feared he was still a bit too self-assured for his own good—or for that of her, Khumi, and Ursunabi. Gilgamesh’s eyes beamed with pride as the boat approached Uruk’s strand, which had grown considerably since the last time she had seen it, though not nearly so much as to warrant the Lugal’s triumphal pose. The entire city did not even equal Akh’Uzan Village in the World-that-Was—the backwoods hamlet where Tiva grew up—in size or splendor of architecture. She had to admit that parts of the Kulaba hill and E’Anna Temple came close—those sections built before the Madness.
Gilgamesh directed Ursunabi to put in at the far end of the East Channel, by a slip kept for him near the harbormaster’s house. A fat little man bustled out of a small baked-brick home, shouting and waving Ursunabi away until he saw Gilgamesh standing in the boat. The Harbormaster’s manner changed immediately to one of sycophantic welcome.
“Lord Gilgamesh; a thousand welcomes be to you! But you must hurry inside my house before Dumuzi’s men see you! Inana rules from E’Anna. All Uruk worships her; except a few like me.”
Gilgamesh smiled. “I figured that worm and his mother would slide into power in my absence. Are my fighting men still around?”
The Harbormaster nodded rapidly. “Yessings to that! Dumuzi could not do without them, but they all hoped for your return! If not for them, that woman who calls herself ‘Ishtar’ would have total control!”
Gilgamesh turned to his companions. “These are my faithful friends. Extend them the courtesy of visiting lords.”
“Yes, m’Lord.”
Gilgamesh said to Khumi and Ursunabi, “Have your weapons ready, friends. It might be best if Mother remains at the house.”
Tiva said, “With due respect to the Lugal, may I remain with my husband?”
Khumi said, “It would be best to follow Gilgamesh’s lead, Tiva.”
Tiva saw a look in her husband’s eye she had learned to respect rather than despise over the past century and a half, and relented.
The Harbormaster motioned to his house. “Come, come, sacred lady, you will like my wife. Company she loves to have.”
Tiva allowed the little man to lead her to the small house, praying every step of the way that the big Lugal really still had control of the city.
128
The dripping of rainwater from the palace roof onto some hollow surface in the garden outside, almost kept time with the woman’s senseless yammer.
Dumuzi knew that his mother—or was she his wife today?—would do it again. She would change her story, perhaps even in mid-stream, and then tell him how “her words created the new reality as she spoke.” She was definitely his mother, because he would never have chosen her as his wife. Then again, many men of stature had their wives chosen for them by their parents. He simply had the misfortune of having a goddess for a mother, who never aged, and who felt because of it that no woman could ever replace her in her boy’s eyes. Dumuzi had tried replacing her; it just never ended well for him. It had ended even worse for his beloved Belili.
Nowadays, he simply kept mistresses.
The clouds outside darkened their bedchamber in the E’Anna, while Inana prattled on about En-Ki’s new plan for them as only Inana could.
It galled him to listen to her try to talk him into slinking off into exile as if it were a victory. Yeah, let’s just redefine the word “victory,” Mother; we’ll call defeat “victory” because that always works so well! He knew that most of the warriors were even now sliding back to Gilgamesh—that his hold on them had never been more than tenuous at best. The only reason he ruled at all was that Gilgamesh’s son was as much a slave to Suinne as Dumuzi was to Inana. Suinne had expected Gilgamesh to return, but wanted Dumuzi to rule until then—why, was anyone’s guess.
Only Inana could talk herself into such nonsense, and Dumuzi knew he would always follow her into it no matter what. It was what he always did—even after she had killed his Belili just to punish him—even after he had allowed her to. Belili’s betrayed eyes, and pleading, still haunted his nightmares from when he had watched the guardsmen lead her away to execution.
What could he do? Inana saw the sacred visions of power behind life’s everyday things, and he could only see the dull, everyday things. Any power he had came through Inana. She gave and took his manhood, and she had the ear of Suinne, who sat like a pale, monstrous spider in the middle of life’s horrible web. Better to be the plaything of Inana than that of Suinne. Not by much, but at least Dumuzi could play with Inana and live.
129
Things went quickly, and well, for Gilgamesh, as the lack of blood spatters on the E’Anna’s spacious tiled floors proved. It helped that Ur’Nungal, the War-Chief, was Gilgamesh’s son by a priestess of his own temple. While tiny, compared to the E’Anna, Gilgamesh’s Shrine still had people devoted to the worship of the two-thirds of the Lugal’s person that he now knew were not “god.”
The problem was that Inana’s capitulation had happened too easily for Gilgamesh not to be suspicious. Dumuzi and Inana knelt before him, ready to go into exile beyond the Martu-lands, west. They did not even plead for him to let them return to Kuara, where Inana had a sizable following. It was almost as if they wanted him to send them away. The breeze fluttering the red wall hangings inside the audience alcove seemed to whisper dark secrets in an unknown tongue.
Gilgamesh looked from Inana to her son, who glistened in a nervous sweat. Here was the weak link.
Dumuzi seemed a pale version of Enmerkar—who had been divine Ninurta’s earthly manifestation, according to Lugalbanda. Same flattened nose, and tight curly hair, except with Inana’s fair complexion and golden hair color, Dumuzi seemed more a mockery of Gilgamesh’s grandfather than the miraculous rebirth of him that Inana claimed. Then, Inana had a rare talent for convincing men that dung smelt like roses. It had been Gilgamesh’s m
ain reason for refusing to sleep with her.
He now had more compelling ones.
The most compelling had to do with why he felt a hovering pressure over his own city he had never experienced there before.
Gilgamesh continued his judgment against the usurpers, “Since you go peaceably, I send you in peace with Father Khnum and Mother Tiva, who also journey west in search of lost kin. I send men with you under command of Khnum and Ursunabi, to protect you both from misadventure along the way.” He said the word misadventure with a sidelong glare at Inana.
Inana-Ishtar raised her head and chest, a sinuous cobra hypnotizing its prey before spitting its venom. She said, “You are wise and unusually gracious, great Gilgamesh. Oh! Oh! And may En-Ki have smilings on your reign.”
The Lugal glared at her. “Speak no more of En-Ki to me, forever!” He then motioned for his guards to take her and her son to where their servants packed their things for the long caravan.
After they left, the dark pillar of muscle that was Ur’Nungal drew close. “Are you sure it was wise to refuse the blessing of En-Ki, Father? Ishtar is still the Mother of Whores, and a powerful goddess—some say, the most powerful of goddesses.”
Gilgamesh folded his arms. “She wasn’t so powerful when I dumped bull guts down her vestments.”
Ur’Nungal had only been a boy during that episode. “I would love to have seen that!”
Gilgamesh smiled. “We have much to discuss, son. Changes are coming. I have found the eternal life I set out to look for. Things are not as we think they are. I hope you will stand with me in the days ahead.”
The War-Chieftain narrowed his eyes for just a second. “Who are these strangers you returned with? Can that small man really be he who built the Boat of a Million Years and achieved godhood?”
“He built the Boat of a Million Years with his own hands, Son. He and his wife are older than this world. They have taught me much.”
“But to change the order of things so settled, for so long—is it wise to risk angering the other gods?”
Gilgamesh faced his son, and nodded. “I understand your concern. Suinne once showed me scrawls with the symbol for disaster set below the mark for blessing. Do you know what the combined glyph meant?”
“No.”
“Opportunity. Did you see inside Ursunabi’s boat?”
“A little; it has many strange things that our boats lack.”
Gilgamesh said, “Those devices are magical—gear-wheels and cords that can lift many times what a man is able to, an enchanted needle that always points to the north, and other things that I do not understand. We were told that they who survived the Great Deluge became gods, and went to Dilmun. Yet Utana’Pishti Khnum says that he is just a man, as we are. Certainly a man would know if he had become a god, would he not?”
Ur’Nungal nodded. “I only counsel we not move too quickly.”
Gilgamesh embraced his son. “I hear you. You are wise.”
130
The journey did not last many days before Tiva tired of Inana’s endless chatter. They were the only two women in the line of donkeys and onagers that skirted the Ufratsis—or Euphratys, as folk now called it—northwest, toward the Cedar Mountains of the Martu Lands, where Gilgamesh had driven the “Cult of Huwawah.”
Tiva was not entirely sure the big Lugal had put it all together that his “flood monster” was actually a twisted mockery of the Creator, invented by the demon, Pahn, who had possessed Lugalbanda. She was certain that Gilgamesh now understood that E’Yahavah was not that monster, even if he never could quite pronounce the Divine Name any closer than Ea. That still bothered Khumi, because he said that sometimes Gilgamesh seemed to think that Ea was just another name for En-Ki, while at others he seemed to understand that they were opposites. At least toward the end, the Lugal appeared to get things reasonably straight.
It was impossible to be certain, but at least there was hope.
That was more than could be said for Inana. Tiva watched her and her quiet son closely during the long days of riding. Inana insisted that they call her “Ishtar” most of the time, which Tiva found revolting, knowing that the name was a shortened version of Isha’Tahar, an evil sorceress of the olden world. “Ishtar” seemed to have no memory of her childhood in Arrata, nor did she appear to recognize Tiva and Khumi, or realize that she had known them once, however distantly, during her childhood. Last night’s conversation at the campfire had made that painfully apparent.
“Do you remember your parents, Inana?” Tiva had asked her, trying to discover how deeply the Madness affected the woman.
“I am Ishtar, Inana only was. My father is Anu, but he left me long ago to be raised by the faithful moon god, Nanna-Suenne.”
“Suinne?” Tiva had asked; horrified by the idea that any parent would leave their child with that monster, even a fictional parent.
“Yes. Nanna-Suenne is my foster father. After Ninurta left to fight monsters, Suenne came to me at Kuara, and helped me deliver Dumuzi.”
Tiva was amazed that the monster had not devoured the child upon helping Inana bring him into the world. Then, to her horror, she had realized that he likely had done just that, only in a different, perhaps more hideous sense. The thought of what a man raised under the tutelage of the pale astronomer had suffered, or would be capable of, chilled Tiva’s blood.
“You don’t remember Arrafu, Utu, Rasu’Eya, or Ereshkigal?”
At mention of Ereshkigal, Inana’s face darkened. “Ereshkigal, goddess of the dead, took my lover from me! But I went into Under-world and won him back from her, I did! Me!” Then her face had softened as she said, “Utu, my brother, is god of the sun, blazing Shamash, who rides across the sky each day, blessed be.”
Tiva had not wanted to probe further after that. Unfortunately, since then, the mad woman had warmed up to her, and seemed to want nothing more than to engage her in the “Idle Girl-talk of the Damned”—as Tiva had referred to it, when she told Khumi.
More unfortunately still, Khumi had said that it might be useful to encourage Inana; that they might learn something more of what was happening in the world since their exile. Tiva had complained that they had already learned enough from Gilgamesh, but her husband, half-teasing, had told her how, “Women noticed things men didn’t”—something she now regretted always telling him.
Thus, the caravan snaked along the endless river; with Tiva listening to Inana’s inane gibbering, smiling, and nodding whenever she felt she could safely do so without offending E’Yahavah, or making herself too nauseated.
“…Oh! Oh! So, my holy quest is to find Ninurta. He has gone to the four corners of the world, and now I must find his parts to put them back together again, so we may rule the world together.”
“I was on Ninurta’s ship when it left Uruk.” Tiva did not know why she said it—maybe to shut the woman up, if only briefly.
Inana paused. “So, Ninurta went to Dilmun too, where goddingness is to Zuisudra. Is he still there?”
Tiva said, “No. Ninurta left us there with some colonists, long ago, and then took the ship on into the Great Southern Ocean. Where he went after that, I do not know.”
Inana waved her hand. “Goodings are. You have served me as far as you can as a sister goddess. I now mystically collect from you the first piece of the sacred mystery. My peace be upon you.”
Tiva tried not to roll her eyes.
131
The pale, twisted figure in the covered sedan chair leered down at Ur’Nungal from the pedestal where the porters had placed him. Decrepit with premature age, Suinne worked his will through others more efficiently now than when he had possessed an able body—if the colorless, sore-ridden form he was born with ever deserved to be called able. His mind had always made up for what his body lacked. The proof stood before him, and in the Khaldini builders who diligently constructed for him a city not far away—the City—Ur of the Khaldini, dedicated to the moon god!
The irony never stopped tasting swee
t. Even Lugalbanda and En-Ki had left Suinne to shape history and civilization according to his own designs. His success was self-evident. The very sons of those who had once despised him for his deformity and bloodline, then for his “blasphemy,” now worshipped him as their god!
Fortunes had reversed. Arrafu, once Lord of Arrata, now eked out a living on the eastern edges of the world as a wandering priest for whatever the sons of Yoqtani and Elammi would pay him. Arrafu’s once proud and O-so-upright Khaldini now served Suinne, who had redefined the very memory of the M’El-Ki, and reduced that of their E’Yahavah to “Huwawah,” the spiteful troll who sent floods in the name of cranky, sleep-deprived Enlil!
People were such sheep.
Suinne glared down at the son of Gilgamesh, who had stood there, quivering, long enough. “What do you want?”
Ur’Nungal looked to the floor of the decaying shrine, where the Khaldi Napalku had once tallied tribute for long-forsaken Arrata.
“Well?”
“I beg a thousand pardons, O god of the moon! I come to report on my father, as you commanded me. It is as we feared.”
Suinne wanted good information. “Relax, Ur’Nungal, you bear the name of my temple city in yours. I am pleased with you. Pour yourself some date liquor, and tell me the details—pour one for me, too.” Suinne gestured at the drink table that contained a generous flask of the potent beverage.
Ur’Nungal poured two silver goblets. He bowed as he handed the first to the gnarled hand that reached out from the sedan chair like that of a bloodless corpse reanimated by dark incantations.
Suinne felt unusually generous. “Sit at my feet, and tell me your tale. Choose the best cushion from my divan.”
Uruk’s War-Chieftain offered thanks, and settled at the foot of the sedan chair’s stand. “Gilgamesh’s grief has made him forget his duties, Lord. I ask mercy for him, for I do not think he understands how much it could upset the established order.”
Gate of the Gods: Book 5 of The Windows of Heaven Page 41