“Can’t we go back?”
“Back, indeed,” Grenville returned, shouting above the wind. “But not back there... back further in time!”
Grenville momentarily lowered his head as he apparently gave some silent, cerebral command, and as if they were on a roller coaster they ascended swiftly once again into the clouds.
David shielded his eyes as a thunder of air engulfed them and there was a flapping sound as of a flag waving violently in the wind. A thousand days and nights seemed to wink instantly by them, and the driving wind became so furious that David had to shield his face entirely. Only once was he able to look up and catch a glimpse of what seemed to be a swirling tunnel of clouds, and then the roar grew deafening and they descended once again into the darkness.
As before, when the roar finally faded he saw that they were flying along through the clouds, and this time when the cloud cover parted he saw that they were high above a desert. Wherever they were, it also appeared to be dusk, for he could make out Venus twinkling on the horizon. They had also entered at a greater altitude than they had over Avebury, and as they plummeted downward David feared that he was going to faint.
At length, as they leveled off, he made out what appeared to be man-made structures on the desert far below, geometric traceries that nearly blended in with the color of the sand. It was only as they descended farther that he realized one of the objects was a ziggurat. He was looking down at one of the first monuments of civilization, one of the city-states of ancient Sumeria.
As they flew in closer they passed over a bluff, and a larger brace of earthwork settlements came into view, surrounded by a filigree of irrigated fields. Most noticeable of all, however, was the immense cloud of dust that rolled across the horizon, raised by an army that appeared to be in the midst of an attack upon the city.
Suddenly, to David’s astonishment, they descended so close to the ground that for a moment he thought they were going to crash. But instead, they leveled off once again and glided straight toward one of the desert plateaus. As they drew closer it appeared that there was a small battalion of Sumerian soldiers waiting to greet them. David and Grenville flew right up to the assemblage, and then, like a great bird descending, their chairs floated gently down and alighted on the sandy promontory just a scant twenty feet from the group.
“What are we doing here?” David asked breathlessly, but Grenville only gestured for him to be silent. Incredulous, he turned and looked once again at the soldiers. In the manner of the time, they wore long, flounced skirts, and on their upper bodies they had only fringed shawls draped over one side of their bronzed and muscular shoulders. For the moment they appeared neither friendly nor antagonistic, but just gazed at them sternly as they held their swords and spears motionless at their sides. Behind them stood what appeared to be the tent of their commander, and as David watched, the flap parted and out stepped their leader. He was taller than many of his soldiers, although he still stood only about five feet seven, and his black hair was parted in the middle and braided into a thick pigtail. His long black beard was trimmed into a square geometric block and his features were fierce and determined.
He stepped forward, accompanied by several priestly advisers.
“Stand,” Grenville instructed quietly.
They both stood to greet the approaching group.
“Who is it?” David asked under his breath just moments before they arrived.
“It is Lugalzaggesi,” Grenville whispered in return.
David looked once again at the army still laying siege to the city in the distance. “Then this must be the taking of Lagash,” he replied, recalling the ancient military leader’s role in Sumerian history.
“Very good,” Grenville commended. “Now, do be quiet if you value your life.”
David still could not believe it. He looked down at the sand beneath his feet, at the glint of Lugalzaggesi’s sword, and at the solidity of his flesh, searching for some flaw that betrayed it all as a dream. But the rattle of their sandals, the dry desert air, it was all uncompromisingly real.
The cadre reached them.
David looked into the eyes of the warrior king, the conquering Alexander of his day, and was suddenly galvanized by the smoldering darkness he found there. It was not only that they were cruel eyes. What was far more frightening was that they were vacant, soulless eyes, more like an animal’s than a man’s. It occurred to him that they were the eyes of a creature not yet far removed from the beast, the way the eyes of his race had looked at the very dawn of its humanity.
He trembled, wondering what was going to happen next, when to his surprise, Lugalzaggesi fell to his knees and bowed his head, and all of the soldiers and the priests did the same.
“Inanna igbal kalkatum, “Grenville greeted them, and Lugalzaggesi rose to his feet. “Elam ashak asharu,” the old magician continued.
Lugalzaggesi’s eyes filled with tears. “Elam shigash shi malakir,” he returned reverently, and slowly all of the soldiers and the priests returned to their feet. “Ennatum ashak?” he added, and David noted that even in these savage times the raised inflection at the end of a sentence seemed to denote a question.
Grenville looked in the direction of the city under siege, his gaze as merciless as always, and then once again turned in the direction of the warrior king.
“Ennatum ashak,” he confirmed in reply.
A wave of approval seemed to pass through the attendant soldiers as still more tears flooded Lugalzaggesi’s eyes and he strode imperiously to the edge of the plateau. He raised his sword and held it motionless aloft for several moments, then brought it crashing down. Another resounding cry rang out from the army in the valley as battalion after battalion of Lugalzaggesi’s troops now flooded through the gates of the city.
“What is it?” David whispered. “What has just happened?”
“He thinks we are gods,” Grenville explained, “and he wanted my go-ahead before he laid final sack to the city.”
“And you gave it?” David asked contemptuously.
“It does not matter,” Grenville replied. “If we had not happened along, he would have found his omen in something tonight.”
David’s horror remained unmitigated. In the distance he could make out the muted screams of women and children as they were put to the sword. “Why did you bring me here?” he asked.
“To show you something I think you’ll like,” Grenville returned.
“Certainly not this?”
“The battle? No... Something you’ll find far more to your interest. Something that Lugalzaggesi doesn’t really consider all that important. Let me show you.”
Grenville turned to Lugalzaggesi once again and murmured something else in the tongue that David had recognized as Sumerian, and the warrior king nodded obediently.
“Follow me,” Grenville instructed David as he padded off through the sand.
Lugalzaggesi had already conquered much of the perimeter of the city, and at the end of the plateau they came upon a group of buildings David recognized as part of the temple complex. Outside of one of the buildings, Lugalzaggesi, who had followed close behind, pointed toward a door.
Taking a torch from its wall sconce, Grenville motioned for David to accompany him inside. They passed through a tunnel into an anteroom, and then through another tunnel and into a vast chamber. Grenville held the torch aloft and David gasped. Lugalzaggesi’s men were obviously using the chamber as a storage room, and there were huge clay jars filled with oil, water, beer, and grain. But what captured David’s attention were the clay tablets the room contained. Lining the walls and filling endless wooden shelves were thousands upon thousands of them, not crumbled or half buried in the sand, but new and clean and vividly legible. It was clear that Lugalzaggesi and his men cared little about the contents of the room, for here and there they had callously pushed shelving down to make room for their stores, but the vast majority of the tablets were still intact. David knelt forward and gingerly picked
up one of the cuneiform-encrusted tablets, and his heart started to race. Before him was the entire temple library of Lagash. He knew that scarcely a fragment of these tablets would survive into his era, that time and history would eventually destroy what Lugalzaggesi’s thoughtlessness had already started. But for the moment they were intact, and he marveled at the wealth of knowledge, at the fantastic secrets and lost mysteries they most assuredly contained.
He turned to Grenville abruptly, and in an instant he understood what the old magician was up to. Nothing Grenville had said or done up until now had tempted David. He was intrigued by Grenville’s powers, but nothing the old sorcerer had shown him had given him any real cause to take the bait.
He looked again around the torchlit chamber. But what a boon to an archaeologist such dark forces afforded. He felt dizzied at the prospects. What theories he could advance, what gross ignorances and gaping holes in history he could fill, if he had the opportunity even to translate a fraction of these tablets. And what other libraries might he have access to, what other battles might he witness, what other figures out of history might he talk to, actually meet face to face, and even interview?
Suddenly Grenville waved his hand, and the tablet David was holding flew out of his grasp and placed itself back in a niche in one of the shelves.
“You see,” Grenville said quietly, “I told you not to be so certain that the path I have chosen is not worth the price.”
He turned to leave.
“But can’t I look a little longer?” David pleaded.
“Another time perhaps. Right now we must be getting back.” Grenville motioned for David to walk in front of him, and together they made their way back out. Outside, they bid Lugalzaggesi and his priests good-bye, and David looked one last time at the mighty city of Lagash. He then glanced at the proud prince from Umma and realized with bitter irony that in a few years he would be defeated by an even more ferocious warrior king, the infamous Sargon of Agade. Then it would be Lugalzaggesi’s fate to be brought in neck stock to the gate of Ekur and be ridiculed and spat upon by all who passed by.
They reached their chairs and sat back down, and as the entourage of Sumerians bowed their heads in obeisance, they lifted slowly into the air.
It was just before they were about to enter the wall of clouds that something strange happened. As they were soaring along, far in the distance there appeared a small but intense pinprick of light. It took several moments before David realized that it was zooming toward them. He squinted at it, trying to make out other features, but as it drew closer he realized it was little more than a bead, brilliantly luminous, and slightly golden in hue. Grenville also noticed it and seemed to be looking at it fearfully, and before David knew what was happening, it streaked toward them with lightning speed and struck the old magician in the side of the head, crackling furiously as it did so, and then soared off again, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared.
Grenville cried out with pain from the impact, and the moment he did David felt the powerful and steady force that gripped his chair shudder and loosen, and the next thing he knew they were tumbling over and over, plummeting downward. He screamed and struggled to hold onto his chair, and then out of the corner of his eye he saw a large ruby suspended on a chain come tumbling out of Grenville’s robe and slip neatly off his head. Desperately the old magician reached out and grasped it with but two of his fingers, and they tumbled for a few seconds longer before he finally regained control of their chairs. They leveled off just seconds before crashing into a rocky escarpment that had appeared in the desert beneath them, and they once again glided upward into the clouds.
Grenville slipped the ruby back into his robe.
Back through the mists they traveled, back through the thunder and the darkness, until once again they were both resting peacefully on the floor in Grenville’s study.
David looked around him just to make sure that they were indeed ensconced in the comforting solidity of the room before he turned to Grenville.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Just a phenomenon,” Grenville returned.
“What kind of phenomenon?”
He looked at David crossly. “A phenomenon,” he repeated. “It is just one of the rare but occasional hazards of time travel.”
It was clear from the disagreeable tone of his voice that he was not going to tell David any more about the thing, but it was also obvious that whatever it was, not only had it very nearly caused them to tumble to their deaths, but it had scared the wits out of Grenville. He had all but lost his normally implacable composure, and his eyes darted about nervously as he apparently contemplated the meaning of the encounter.
David too was deeply shaken over the event, but he was also excited, for it suggested at least that there were limits to Grenville’s power, and forces that were perhaps greater than his magic.
Grenville continued in his agitation until finally, cursorily, he called the butler and instructed him to show David out. David looked at him one last time as he was leaving the study, and observed that he was still sitting in his chair, fidgeting and thinking, while behind him the fire dwindled, and the maharaja in its gold palanquin glistened as it continued its interminable crossings.
As he drove home David’s thoughts were in a flurry of confusion. One moment he was overcome with excitement, hypnotized by the implications of his journey into the past, and the next he was in the throes of depression, and then perplexity, as he recalled the various points in their conversation where Grenville had become curiously evasive, or seemed to be hedging some point. It was when he was almost to the cottage that he thought of the most baffling thing of all. With the evening now behind him it struck him as extraordinary that Grenville should care so much about what he felt at all. In retrospect, Grenville had spent the entire evening trying to win him over, to seduce David into crossing over to his side. Why? Everything that he knew about the old magician suggested that his ruthlessness knew no bounds. If he really only wanted the genetic contribution of their children, why didn’t he just kill David and Melanie? He had certainly not displayed any qualm about eradicating his adversaries in the past. What was so special about them that he had chosen instead to keep them alive?
When he arrived home he found Katy waiting up for him in the living room. The look on her face told him something was wrong.
“What is it, Katy?”
“It’s Mom,” she said, motioning for him to follow her upstairs.
“What about Mom?”
“She’s really sick.”
David followed his daughter upstairs. In the bedroom he found Mrs. Comfrey standing attentively at Melanie’s side and there was the smell of vomit in the room. Mrs. Comfrey looked up with a concerned expression. “It’s the Missus. She’s terribly ill.”
David rushed over to the bed and looked down at his wife. She was beaded with perspiration and her eyes were closed. Tuck stood worriedly at her side, gently stroking his mother’s limp hand.
“Do you know what’s wrong with her?” David asked the housekeeper.
For the first time since he had known her Mrs. Comfrey seemed definitely in a dither. “We brought her a cheese sandwich and some soup after you left, but she couldn’t keep them down. It came on quite suddenly. She complained of feeling ill and the next thing I knew she was delirious. She finally fell asleep and I thought it best to let her rest.”
David sat down next to his wife and felt her forehead. “She does have a fever,” he said. All of the commotion caused Melanie to stir, and she opened her eyes and looked up at her husband weakly.
“Oh, David, I’m so glad that you’re home.”
“What is it, Melanie? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. Suddenly I just felt awful.”
“Well you haven’t been taking care of yourself. I told you to pull yourself together.”
“It’s not that,” she said in a hush. “It’s something else.”
“What else, Melanie?”
“I don’t know,” she said in a voice so low that it was almost inaudible.
“Melanie, I can’t hear you. What else, what is it?” he prompted.
“I just feel so strange,” she whispered. “I feel as if... as if I’ve been drugged or something.” She tried desperately to lift her head, but then she fell back to her pillow.
“Mom!” Tuck cried, as David pulled him close and hugged him. In his other hand he took Melanie’s and was about to ask her something further when he saw that she had again lapsed into unconsciousness. He sat there for several minutes wondering what to do, and then finally, as he was about to place her hand back down beside her, he saw. In the middle of the white expanse of her arm was a large red welt.
His interest piqued, David leaned forward and examined it more closely. The red swelling was about as big around as the end of his thumb and in the very center of it was a small red dot, not unlike the sting of a wasp or other insect. He turned around quickly and noticed that the window was open and the curtains were fluttering in.
“What is this?” he asked, and Mrs. Comfrey examined the mark perplexedly.
“Looks like a spider bite or something,” she said. “Yes, that’s it. Perhaps she’s having an allergic reaction to a spider bite.”
“Or some other insect,” David countered as he walked quickly over to the window and shut it. And then he paused, gazing out into the darkness as he pieced together a possible picture of what had happened.
When Julia had leaped out of the window of Grenville’s study he had not heard her hit the ground. Grenville had said that she had the ability to turn herself into an insect, and as he gazed back at the welt on his wife’s arm he now thought it likely that she had done just that. For some reason she had transformed herself into a bee or something and had come in the window and stung Melanie. But why? Out of jealousy? Or out of the sheer malice of the act?
He did not know. He only knew that now, as he saw the health and well-being of his family slowly being whittled away before his eyes, whatever temptation he had felt for Grenville’s offer quickly faded from his mind.
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