Later, as the first light of day spread over the plain, Ott made his way to the rear of the city and climbed to the top of the parapet. In the distance, trails of wispy black smoke twisted into the morning sky from the twin volcanic peaks. The volcano had been trailing smoke into the clear air for as long as anyone could remember, but the city had never experienced an eruption. The smoky cones were simply a normal part of the rolling plains. But as Ott gazed at the twin peaks, the rising smoke was somewhat thicker and darker than usual. Noise from the plain diverted Ott’s attention, and he looked to the east, where a trade caravan moved along in a stir of dust on one of the main roads. He gauged the distance by landmarks and estimated an arrival by late morning. It would be another busy day, and the city was already crowded. Another caravan had arrived the previous afternoon, and the one approaching was well back along the road. By afternoon, the bazaars and trading areas would be teeming with people. Ott swung his gaze over the twin peaks one last time before retrieving his bow and heading down from the rooftop to join Graf, who was herding goats on the plain.
Throughout the day, the entire city and adjoining trade areas bustled with activity, and as the afternoon sun stretched long shadows, visitors and citizens alike headed for the sprawling labyrinth of baths to relax and refresh in anticipation of the evening feast.
On the plain, Ott and Graf, with the help of several boys, herded the animals back to the corrals below the walls. With the huge enclosure secured, they made their way to the warm springs, where they were met by Cha, Yaan, Asil, and Ece. In keeping with their daily ritual, they removed their clothing and slipped into a familiar pool off to the side of the main entrance to the interior chambers. They all commented that the water was warmer than they remembered.
The hot springs were even more crowded than usual, and this day the interior of the complex was filled from the open area to the deepest chambers. The clamor had risen to a constant din when Ott and the others decided to return to the rooftop. They climbed out of the pool, dried, and dressed in the open area and started back. They hadn’t taken more than a few steps when a thick, low rumble rose from deep in the earth and the ground shook beneath their feet. In the interior of the labyrinth, the chattering and laughter were replaced by instant silence as everyone froze, wide eyed and stunned by the shaking walls and vibrating pools. Seconds passed in silence, and the rumbling and quaking faded as quickly as it had started.
Though more pronounced than usual, mild quaking was not uncommon, and as Ott and the others reached the rooftop, the noise from the interior of the baths resumed.
The bath complex remained noisy and crowded well into the late afternoon. The tremor was all but forgotten when the first bubbles appeared in the pools around the entrance to the interior. At first, they floated to the surface, popped silently, and released harmless heated air freed from underground fissures by the earlier volcanic tremors. The bubbles soon appeared everywhere in the interior pools, and were for the most part unnoticed or ignored, until they rose faster and popped with a foul odor.
The hydrogen sulfide that bubbled up in the pools and filtered through fissures in the interior was colorless, transparent . . . and deadly. Although not visible, its presence was obvious and the effects immediate. As a rank, sulfuric odor engulfed the interior of the baths, people everywhere gasped for air as they stared at each other through burning, watery eyes. Many grabbed at their throats trying to scream in spreading panic, but with the loss of oxygen, they only managed to hack a deep cough and gasp as they slipped to unconsciousness and died brief moments later. As the toxic gas rose under high pressure, it saturated the air, and the odor changed to a sweetish, almost flowery scent. But most never noticed; they were unconscious or already dead.
Within the few moments it took for the gas to saturate the air, the entire expanse of the baths was strewn with hundreds of bodies lying among the rocks and bobbing in the pools surrounded by softly bursting bubbles of death.
On the rooftop, Ott was the first to notice the silence. He tilted his head and cocked his ear. It was quiet, strangely quiet. Confused, he jogged toward the rear of the city. Something was wrong. As he neared the far wall, he recoiled as his nostrils were assaulted by the acrid odor that hung in the still air. He jumped to the parapet and peered down. His eyes widened as he tried to make sense of what he saw. Scattered everywhere below among the hundreds of piles of clothing were the naked bodies of those who had been close enough to the entrance to get out before losing consciousness, dropping, and dying on the ground where the dense, deadly gas had settled.
As he stared in disbelief, his eyes and throat began to burn and a wave of nausea rippled through his body. Instinctively, he held his breath, jumped from the parapet, and sprinted away from the fumes. Running in near panic, he held his breath for as long as he could, and then, his lungs burning, he sniffed the air. No odor. The fumes were behind him. He walked forward, gulping fresh air. Ahead in the distance, Cha, Graf, and Yaan were racing toward him. He raised his arms, motioning for them to stop, then ran to them and began pushing them back.
At the hearth, everyone listened in horror as he explained that all the people in the baths were dead, killed by a strange odor that was now rising to the roof at the far end of the city. Frightful glances mirrored everyone’s thoughts. Would the death smell move over the rooftop? Could it kill everyone? Was anywhere safe? Answers came when a crowd staggered into view approaching from the interior of the city.
Coughing and nearing panic, the crowd pushed and shoved forward. Through choked voices they explained that from everywhere behind, people were dead and dying. The fumes were rising from the numerous large ponds outside the walls and in the city itself from the cisterns fed by underground streams. The entire city and outlying areas were being shrouded by the deadly stench. As Ott listened, he again caught the scent of the invisible death cloud. They had to get off the roof and away from the city before it was too late. As the odor became stronger, the entire crowd broke in sheer panic, scrambling in all directions.
The only ways off the roof were the lower-walled areas at the front and rear of the city, and both of those were already littered with the dead and saturated with the deadly fumes. The gas killed quickly, and the odor was becoming thicker. Ott looked to the edge of the closest section of wall. It was a fifty-foot drop, and with smooth, plaster-coated sides, climbing was impossible. Jumping was almost certain death. His eyes darted from side to side as he wrestled for a way to escape. Then an idea flashed, and he snapped his attention to Graf.
“The ladders,” he shouted, pointing to the hatch doors. “Get the ladders from the dwellings.”
Without hesitation, Graf and everyone else hauled ladders from the entrances of nearby dwellings. They lashed the ladders together with cinch belts and pouch straps. Within moments, three rows of ladders were lowered over the wall and secured to the parapet. The ladders formed a rough latticework extending to a few feet above the ground.
As soon as the last of the ladders was secured, panic-stricken people began scrambling down. Screaming, yelling, and coughing filled the air, and in the frenzy to escape, several people fell and crashed to the ground. Some died from the fall; others slumped to the ground with broken bones and succumbed to the high concentration of fumes.
As the last of the crowd climbed down or fell from the ladders, Ott shouted to Graf and darted to the entrance of his dwelling. With the ladder gone, he swung down from the edge and dropped to the floor. He gathered up several bows and quivers and extended them up to Graf, who placed them on the roof. Next, he extended his arms. Graf lay flat above and hauled Ott to the roof. They dropped the bows and quivers over the edge and swung onto the now empty ladders. They grappled down and jumped the final few feet to the ground. All around, bodies of those who had fallen or jumped littered the base of the wall as far as they could see. Retrieving the bows and quivers, they sprinted toward the open plain, where Cha, Yaan, Asil, and Ece jogged forward, outpacing the fumes and sucki
ng in clean air.
Well away from the toxic fumes, Ott and Graf joined the other survivors and gulped in fresh air. They stared back at the city in horror and sorrow. Other gases and a thick, gray-brown cloud of smoke engulfed the entire city and the outlying villages to the north. Ott swept his view to the twin volcanic peaks in the distance. The usual thin spirals of black smoke twisted into the sky. There had been no eruption, but the gases released by the quakes had been every bit as deadly. He turned back to the city. Completely enveloped in the rolling cloud of death, it was eerily silent, and he realized that except for the few standing with him, everyone in the city was dead. Catal was dead.
Huddled on the plain, everyone stood in muted silence, emotions wrenched by dread and loss. With the sun dipping to the horizon, Ott motioned to the others and turned in the direction of Antakya. He took several steps before glancing over his shoulder for a final look. The city was obscured by the now lead-colored cloud that shifted in the stuttering breeze. What had been the enduring city of life and splendor for millennia was now a lifeless shell.
Over time the toxic cloud dissipated, but the subterranean fissures remained open and the invisible hydrogen sulfide seeped for centuries, making the city and surrounding areas completely uninhabitable. The empty city stood above the plain as a mute memorial to the thousands who had died there. Over millennia, as the contour of the plain shifted, earth accumulated up and over the walls until the city was swallowed by the earth and it disappeared as nothing more than a huge, raised sprawl of grassland. And Catal was forgotten.
In modern times, the city would be discovered on the plain of Konya in Turkey and excavated as a major archeological site. One member of the excavation team had an uncanny sense of the city’s layout. His name was Dr. Lawrence Otty.
67
In the centuries following the abandonment of Catal, Ott, Cha, Graf, and Yaan sailed from their new home in Antakya to all the major ports of the Mediterranean basin, trading and often staying in favorable ports and inland cities, and learning the languages and ways of the people. Asil and Ece sailed with them on occasion, but as centuries passed, they spent most of their time helping the Antakya elders lead the city. When they did voyage by sea, it was usually to maintain trade policies and ensure alliances remained intact.
On a crisp, sun-drenched morning with a crew of ten, they set off on such a trip. It was to be a three-day voyage to the port of Adana: one day to reach the port, one day of discussions, and a third day to return. Their ship slipped from the mooring and glided out of the harbor toward the open sea while a small crowd saw them off. A gentle breeze billowed the sail, and the sleek ship cleared the harbor, slicing into the soft chop of the open water. With the wind favorable and the sky bright and clear, Asil and Ece could not have imagined this was a voyage they would never complete. The time they always knew would come had arrived.
They sailed calmly for the better part of the day, but by late afternoon, they encountered a headwind that slowed their progress. Rather than risk any problems navigating the narrow entrance to the harbor in the encroaching darkness, they decided to drop anchor in the deeper water and spend the night on the ship. Later, with the ship anchored and secure, the crew ate their evening meal and retired to their quarters below the main deck. The breeze dropped to a whisper, the water like glass and the night air warm and pleasant as Asil and Ece finished their dinner in the cabin high on the stern.
Asil opened the folding sections of the fantail. The open area was over eight feet high and nearly twice as wide, providing an unobstructed view of a full moon backed by an endless sea of twinkling stars in a sky as black as the water below. He and Ece sat side by side in large, pillowed chairs sipping wine from wooden goblets while the soft, balmy breeze washed over them. Ece sipped at the wine and, with a yawn, rested her head back to stare up at the sky. That was when she spotted it. Without speaking, she grasped Asil’s hand and squeezed while pointing to a spot low in the night sky. The blue light was faint, but distinct. They watched as it increased in size and drew closer. Asil slid his hand from Ece’s and draped his arm over her shoulder, pulling her closer. They both knew what was coming, and a few moments later, the entire open expanse of the fantail was bathed in a soft blue glow. They stood with arms encircling each other and slowly stepped to the light.
It was almost a year later when Ott, Cha, Graf, and Yaan learned of their disappearance. They had returned to Antakya from an extended trading voyage and looked forward to reuniting with them as they always had in the past. No sooner had they docked than they were informed that Asil and Ece had disappeared while on a short voyage to Adana. There was no explanation, and the crew only knew that when they had awoken on the day they were to enter the port, Asil and Ece were gone. None of the crew had seen or heard anything, and both smaller deck boats were still secured in place. There was no explanation. They had simply disappeared, and no one had any idea of what had happened. Upon hearing the news, Ott, Cha, Graf, and Yaan didn’t need an explanation. They knew, and they wondered when their time would come. A few days later, they sailed from the city, and as generations passed, the account of the battle with the raiders from the sea faded to a lingering myth.
PART FOUR
Transcendence as the only real alternative . . .
—Václav Havel
68
MEMPHIS, EGYPT
3100 BC
Years bled into centuries as Ott, Cha, Graf, and Yaan plied the waterways of the Mediterranean, trading and living from one end of the sea to the other. They amassed a fortune in gold, precious stones, and rare coined currency from some of the larger cities, but used it only as needed and never with the intent of garnering power or privilege. Their experiences over the seamless stretch of time that was their lives had taught them real wealth was the pleasure found in each day while avoiding the violence escalating around them. Wherever they lived, they assumed the lives of successful merchants and lived as best they could in quiet anonymity. And so it was when they settled among the people known as the Remeth.
When they first began trading with the Remeth, they were taken by their well-being and the prosperity of the cities along the banks of the wide river that flowed through the land. The river flowed from the lower regions up for hundreds of miles to where it emptied into a huge, shallow delta that in turn drained to the sea. The river was called the Iteru, and it was the lifeblood of the Remeth. Each year, as the lakes and tributaries swelled in the rainy season, the upper portion of the river would breach its banks and flood the vast, open lands on each side. When the waters receded, they left behind a thick layer of silt and nutrient-rich soil that produced bountiful crops of wheat, barley, fruits, and vegetables. The grains and untilled grasslands also provided abundant food for large herds of domesticated oxen and cattle, as well as other animals.
For countless centuries, the Remeth lived in the upper regions of the river, and with a well-managed food supply, their culture flourished. Even the lowest of the social structure, the fieldworkers and animal tenders, lived a life free from hunger and resided in well-constructed homes of plastered mud brick. In the larger cities and towns, wealthy merchants, city administrators, and a ruling class of nobles enjoyed comfort, beauty, and luxury. Homes were large and appointed with finely crafted furniture. Clothing was fashioned from tightly woven linen made from the abundant flax that grew along the riverbanks. Jewelry of gold and precious stones was worn by both men and women, and meals were eaten from fired and glazed plates. In the common areas of the cities, temple walls were painted with colorful depictions of the various gods they were dedicated to.
When Ott, Cha, Graf, and Yaan first came to the land of the Remeth, it was the most cultured, prosperous, and peaceful kingdom in the known world. They lived south of Memphis, the capital city, off and on for over four hundred years. To avoid any confusion concerning their agelessness, they maintained homes in different cities along the river and on the coast of the sea to the north. They would live in a fav
orable place many years and then leave, only to return years later when previous memory of them faded as the population aged. The cycle was repeated over centuries. During those times, they learned the ways and languages of all the major trading ports and inland cities. They also witnessed the death and destruction caused by the warfare that had grown commonplace over the centuries, and they avoided places where it occurred regularly. Among the Remeth along the upper reaches of the river, which would become known as the Nile, was such a place of peace. It was there they lived quietly under the rule of King Narmer.
With the scorching desert to the east and west, and the great sea to the north serving as natural barriers, the Remeth lived in peace and prosperity for thousands of years. But as their agricultural systems and building methods reached new levels of refinement, the bounty of the upper Nile regions grew to unprecedented heights. And under the reign of King Narmer, the white-walled Memphis became the jeweled city of the great river.
In the lower regions, the wealth and beauty of the upper regions did not go unnoticed. Djar, the king of the lower regions, looked to Memphis with envy that eventually led to open hostility.
The first incursions were raiding parties targeting small towns and villages. The attacks were swift and nonlethal. A group of well-armed warriors would charge through some city brandishing swords, frightening and scattering the people. Additional men on foot with sledges drawn by donkeys would follow, making off with grain, livestock, and anything else of value. The rural workers of the smaller towns and villages offered little to no resistance, and soon the raids became more frequent and targeted larger cities. The raids progressed up the river and soon became deadly. With repeated success and more warriors joining each raid, Djar’s confidence swelled. He soon envisioned himself on the throne in Memphis, ruler of all Egypt.
The Way of the Seed_Earth Spawn of Kalpeon Page 23