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

by K. G. Powderly Jr.

  By daybreak, they had passed out of sight from White Rock’s outposts. The river fell into a wide valley over the next few weeks, until it reached the edge of the Sink-lands, where it ran off as a shimmering snake into the desert, border dressed by narrow ribbons of green on either side. The Farmer led them south before the foothill grasslands on the western slopes of the mountain chain between them and White Rock turned into arid dunes.

  Dumuzi found the wounded falcon during the fourth week after their escape. He had lapsed into a sullen silence, which told Inana that she likely showed the Farmer a little too much of her loving attentions. Yet, on the previous evening, when she had tried to interest Dumuzi in sleeping with her, he had pushed past her to sulk alone on a big rock under the moonlight.

  When he found the broken-winged falcon the following day, Inana sensed that it was an omen of some sort.

  Dumuzi bound the hunting bird’s wing, at first receiving vicious strikes from its hooked beak. In time, however, he sang softly to the falcon, and gained its trust with strips of dried beef from his own share of the provisions. On the third day of watching her son care for the bird, En-Ki’s voice returned to Inana from its devastatingly long absence.

  “Holy Isis—for so your children will call you in the new lands you now approach—learn a little how to be a mother from your son.”

  Inana hissed quietly, “But I don’t want to be a mother goddess! I’m a goddess of passion, and war—the things men love most! I will not become a fat-thighed, droop-breasted mahma deity!”

  “I said to ‘learn a little…,’ not to stop being who you are. Even warriors need nurses when they are injured, and mothering is just a form of nursing. It is usually the result of sex, too, in case you hadn’t noticed. You will find yourself adept enough at this role too, without betraying more important aspects of your manifold deity.”

  This satisfied Inana again that En-Ki was both wily and wise.

  140

  Old Suinne surveyed the buildings of Uruk that had collapsed in the giant quake, wondering how his own still-under-construction city of Ur had fared. The priestly emissary from his temple at Kish stood beside him, holding a great fan overhead to keep the burning sun off Suinne’s ghost-like face.

  “The damage is extensive, my En-lord.” The priest pointed to the portion of the House of Heaven Temple that had collapsed.

  Suinne harrumphed. “I don’t imagine Ishtar…” he used what had become Inana’s popular Akkadian name in deference to his priest’s dialect, “…will be back to live there any time soon. In any case, we shall rebuild the E’Anna even larger. Have you carried out my sacred instructions?”

  The Priest said, “Yes, Divine One. All written tablets at Kish have been ground to powder, and the rolled magic writings brought from Arrata long ago by the Vizier of Ninurta, I have collected, and brought to you. Most of them have almost completely crumbled away to dust, I regret to say.”

  Suinne felt his hopes sink. “Are you sure no copies remain at Kish? En’Tarah-ana was literate. Did you make certain any writings he might have made before he died were also collected from the palace and brought here?”

  “Yes, Divine One, especially there. Few of his people were as he was—except some merchants, who kept business tallies, which we also seized. No scrawl or wedge-rune remains with the Akkadians. Only your Khaldini priests in the Sumar have the magic of scrawl, now. The evil incantations from the old cult have been erased.”

  “And what of the Asshurians?”

  “They have forgotten scrawl, if they ever really had it; and the son of Kullasina worships in the cult of Nanna-Suenne, as well as that of Asshur, and Ninurta. He is your loyal servant and watches the movements of old Asshur diligently. Asshur says his forces stand ready to sweep westward at your word to seize White Rock, so that your chosen Ensi will control the trade routes west.”

  Suinne signaled his bearers to carry him down from his vantage point, back to the tiny shrine that had somehow survived the quakes. “We must finally make plans to remove from Arrata what remains of its vast storehouse of magic, now that we have secured the lands that our caravans must cross between here and there. He who controls the past controls the present, and he who controls both, controls the future.”

  The priest from Kish walked alongside Suinne’s bearers like a loyal dog currying a treat.

  The giant fly in Suinne’s ointment was the fact that those few with a technical education, beyond what scraps he had picked up as a well read dabbler, were all dead, departed with Ninurta, or suffering among the Mad Ones from a permanent case of stupid.

  141

  Psydon had sent Haviri back to White Rock for help after the Big Quake. The water levels of the lower river kept rising, consuming his city slowly, like a shimmering snake. By the third week, an estuary had widened out, and encroaching waters had forced most of his people to relocate on top of the small ridgeline, above the rapids that fed what used to be his private gardens.

  Worse than all that, the nightmares had returned after over a century of peace. They fed on his grief over the loss of his wives, a mass of black maggots stripping the corpse of his happiness.

  The ruins of Psydon’s cut-stone house still sat high and dry, though the water rose anywhere from a half-cubit to two cubits a day. The former sun ship commander pitched a tent in his gardens, reasonably sure that he knew the cause of the flood, and that it would subside before it reached the garden grotto. Even if it did not, he would have plenty of time to move up onto the ridge with his people. The superstitious rabble now saw Psydon as master of the encroaching sea simply because he showed no fear of it. At least that strengthened his aura as their leader. They could just as well have blamed him for the rising waters.

  Psydon remembered the lay of the land where the giant wave had beached his old Sun Ship, Paru’Ainu. He and his men had followed the wide valley descending slowly into the Sink-lands, which he knew just by dead reckoning had to be below sea level. The Big Quake had doubtless opened a rift across the bay and lowlands between the foothill where his ship ran aground and the highlands south. The Ocean of Aztlan now poured into the Sink-lands, and would stop once it reached sea level. While Psydon had never bothered to make precise measurements of where that was, relative to his city, his best estimate fell short of the garden grotto.

  He went to sleep thinking about building a nice beachfront palace, certain that such thoughts would give him better dreams than those of late.

  Psydon was wrong.

  The dark snake-thing that lived under the dead seas, the monster that devoured the dead, and brought their limp spirits as morsels to Under-world, had returned. With it, came Psydon’s uncertainty. Was he actually even asleep when that black tentacle with a mouth on its end writhed up from the estuary, through the garden grotto, and into his tent? Were the morning slime trails he found just his imagination?

  He lacked no certainty that it came to remind him of his debt.

  142

  Iyapeti’s war bands arrived at White Rock about three weeks after the Big Quake. He had sent messengers out to muster his tribes in response to his brother’s call for help, before departing the Mountain of Roses. Only three troops responded, consisting of forty-four horsemen of the Rhodesos, almost seventy from the Valley of Aelyss, and a hundred or so from the sons of Khetta, the liberated Khana’Anhu chieftain.

  “I had expected more, ‘Sumi, I’m sorry,” ‘Peti said to his brother as they watched the riders dismount.

  Khumi slapped his eldest brother’s back. “Hey, it’s better than me, I just brought myself and Ursunabi, and I’ll wager Ursunabi’s much handier in a scrape than I am.”

  The big boatman smiled at his adopted father’s praise.

  U’Sumi shrugged. “I’d hoped for more, too, but we’ll need to make do. Don’t feel bad, either of you. The response to my efforts among the Styx Delta tribes has been equally lackluster, and they’re actually in harm’s way. I still haven’t heard from Psydon yet, but Haviri’s
not due back for at least another week. The quake may have changed that.”

  Khumi said, “Those delta colonies are my sons. If they don’t listen to me when we get there, this King Scorpion can have’em!”

  The three troop leaders converged on the brothers as White Rock’s people showed their warriors a more meager hospitality than they would have, if not for the Big Quake.

  Iyapeti clasped the shoulders of all three captains in turn, and asked, “How was the journey?”

  Loros, Captain of the Rhodesos, answered, “Strange things we have seen in our travels; stranger than any since the Misty Times.”

  The Captain from Aelyss said, “The dead are rising from Under-world, and pushing the shimmering mirror-gate before them!”

  Iyapeti had to think to decipher the idioms used by the sons of El’Issaq, as always. Before he could do so, however, the Khettian Chieftain, who led his own troop instead of sending a captain, spoke more plainly.

  “The Sea of Death rises to engulf the land. We saw it as we crossed the valley southeast of the Mountains of Heaven’s Bull!”

  U’Sumi said, “Another deluge? That’s impossible!”

  The three men’s eyes widened with fear. “We would not speak falsely to you, my Lords!”

  “How did you escape the waters?”

  The trio looked to each other as if the question made no sense.

  U’Sumi spoke sharply, “Were there giant waves?”

  Khumi placed a hand on U’Sumi’s arm. “Let me speak to them.”

  Iyapeti nodded to U’Sumi his assent.

  Khumi said, “Did the Sea of Death rise slowly, or in anger?”

  The men all spoke at once, “Slowly!”

  Loros of the Rhodesos added, “We had no danger of drowning. We feared not the water, but the dead beneath it.”

  Khumi said, “It’s not another deluge, ‘Sumi, see? While Tiva and I lived at Tel’Muhn, sea level once rose sharply, and remained at its new height without a wave. It consumed the old waterfront.”

  U’Sumi considered all he had heard. Then he said, “I think I might know what’s happening,” and paused.

  Iyapeti rolled his eyes. U’Sumi had the annoying habit, since they were kids, of claiming he knew the answer to something, and then not letting everyone else in on the big secret. “Well?”

  “Oh, sorry. When we first reconnected with Psydon, after settling White Rock, he told me the fate of his ship.” U’Sumi informed them of Psydon’s shipwreck, and journey through the sinks. “The Big Quake has opened a rift, through which the Aztlan Ocean drains into the basins. It’ll stop once it reaches sea level.”

  Khumi said, “If that’s so, then the rising waters force Misori’Ra and his people southward, upriver, even as we speak. They’re heading right into the approaching army of King Scorpion!”

  143

  Inana was certain the sea had not been there on the western horizon when the sun had set over it, the night before.

  “How long until we reach Psydon?” she asked their guide.

  The Farmer said, “Today. But all is strange. All is wrong!”

  “What?”

  “The Gates of Under-world are rising!” he shouted. “Onward comes the dead!” He trembled as his arm swept out at the distant seashore that had not been on the horizon the day before.

  Inana clasped his quivering hand. “Fear not, brave Farmer-man, I have been to Under-world and returned. I also made a burnt offering of the girl, Belili, and brought Dumuzi back from the clutches of my sister, Ereshkigal. I have made it so that Ereshkigal can have only corpses, while I share my love with living men, as you are. If the dead outnumber the living, it is because they rise to fight for me!”

  Dumuzi came between them. “We must hurry.”

  The bandaged falcon perched on his shoulder gave him an air of confidence Inana had never seen in him before.

  She said, “The falcon, your spirit it is, my son, my husband.”

  He glared at her. “If you say so.”

  The sea vanished over the horizon farther into the Sink-lands just before the fugitives reached Psydon, an hour before sunset. Instead, a wide inlet between two huge sand dune banks curled off into the southwest like a glutted golden serpent, devouring half the city. The lowering sun glimmered off the estuary, which ended inside the sinking city. A rushing river rolled out of the highlands through a lush grotto, which also gave access to Inana’s party.

  Most of the people had relocated to the ridgelines overlooking the grotto on both sides of the river, above what remained of the city. Many buildings below had collapsed in the Big Quake.

  Inana noticed that “the Gates of Under-world” advanced slowly enough for people to out-walk, let alone outrun, and that most had done so along a narrow trail that ran beside the grotto rapids, on the opposite bank. A shallow ford on a flat space, above the rapids, allowed the fugitives from White Rock to cross over to the trail, and most of the people. When her foot touched the water, the voice of En-Ki spoke to her again.

  “Psydon is the ancient titaanu-god of old, Psydonu, reborn. Treat him with respect, and he shall treat you likewise. The next piece of Osiru is found with Psydon, god of the devouring deeps.”

  Inana muttered to the Farmer, “You must announce us to these people… Wait! What is their word for falcon?”

  The Farmer paused in the stream. “Horahkti, my Lady, though some of the remote villages between here and the Styx Delta pronounce it horach, horush, or horus.”

  Inana said, “Good. You will use names they know. Announce me as Isis, and Dumuzi as Horahkti.”

  “As you will, divine Lady.”

  The Farmer turned and continued wading across the ford.

  When they reached the southern bank, he called out to the people camped on the grassy ridgeline, “Hail, people of Psydon, the goddess Isis comes to you, with her son, divine Horahkti, on her sacred quest to find her divine husband, He of the P’Har’Horuah!”

  Inana leaned into her new herald, and whispered, “What is that last you told them?”

  The Farmer muttered back to her, “Those from here on south to the deltas would need to know the house or P’Har of your son. Since he is the Falcon, I said P’Har’Horuah, which is House of the Falcon. Does this not please you?”

  Isis marveled at the resourcefulness of her guide, and decided to give him an extra-long time of reward, later tonight. “Yes, that pleases me well.”

  The people of Psydon gathered around her and Dumuzi.

  An old man said, “Divine they are! The young man carries Horahkti’s spirit on his shoulder, and it obeys him!”

  Another said, “Truly this is golden Isis! Her hair is of gold silk!”

  Inana glanced around, and noticed for the first time that all the people of Psydon had light brown skin and dark brown or black hair. She smiled for them, and said, “I will visit with you all, my children, and bless you each. But first, I must speak to your great Saar; divine Psydon.”

  The graybeard who had noted the Falcon said, “Our great god holds back the onslaught of the deeps, and the spirits in the Under-world they cover! Go down through the garden grotto to where he sits alone in his tent, slowing the attack of the deeps so that we may live!”

  144

  Psydon had taken advantage of the fact that most of the people of his city were descended from his distant nephew, Qirqasa. After marrying his first wives, the daughters of the Misori’Rayim date farmer who had nursed him back to health with the remnant of his crew from the Sun Ship Paru’Ainu, Psydon and his men had struck northeast. The date farmer had told them that in that direction a sweet river emptied into the lifeless sea, which no one had yet settled along.

  Psydon had named both sea and river for himself, but had found his earliest father-in-law’s information outdated as to it being virgin territory. That was where they found the Qirqasim, who for some then-unknown reason, barely spoke coherently.

  Qirqasim women were friendly enough, and the rest of Psydon’s men
found wives and mistresses, all of whom jabbered to them incessantly about Isis and Shu, who had somehow given to them something called a “divine Ma’at.”

  Then, suddenly, all of Psydon’s men fell sick with a brain fever, including Tyr, his son and first officer on the Paru’Ainu. One died, but the rest recovered with impaired speech and mental abilities, although Tyr seemed least affected. Psydon alone remained untouched. After his men recuperated, he also added to his tally of wives, and being the only fully sane man left, quickly rose to leadership over both bands of ragged nomads.

  The former sun ship captain had used his unimpaired brain to establish timber-cutting stations and stone quarries in the mountains east of his camp, which soon grew into his city. If his little saardom’s subjects could not think too creatively, they at least knew how to work, and followed directions well enough once they understood them. Soon, Psydon built a few crude sailing vessels, with which he established a trade triangle between his own river port, the Rhodesos in the north, and the the delta folk.

  The demented Qirqasim, and Psydon’s equally demented crew, began to see him as a god after that. This perception only grew, as it became more evident that most of the fever-struck also aged at an accelerated rate. Some aged faster than others did, but minds deteriorated before bodies even in the least affected. Only Tyr remained of Psydon’s crew, now. When the former captain last visited his son’s village, his second-in-command showed all the signs of senility; something recalled only in horror stories from the World-That-Was World-that-Was . It had given Psydon such a pall of fear that he intended never to go see his son again. It was not as if the wretched gray remembered him anymore, anyhow.