by Anthology
“You can’t tell me I was in the garden that night,” the bull moose went on. “There was no one in that garden. Old Slaf-Carch stoned himself to death, that’s what happened.”
The doctor tried to soothe him. “No one’s accusing you. Stop making worries for yourself. Take some of these herbs—”
“Marduk strike fire through your herbs!” Jipfur would shout. “I don’t want medicine. I want the hot flames removed from my head.”
The doctors couldn’t work with him.
That day Jipfur took a strange notion that men of magic might help. He ordered me to ride forth and find the Serpents. Not the last three, for they knew no magic; they were nothing but artists at badgering and threatening.
“Find my first two Serpents. Yes, and that hunch-backed Third. We’ll see whether their magic is good. Bring each of them here—by force if necessary.”
Outside the palace I was at the mercy of the motley street crowds. The hard feelings toward Jipfur would surely be hurled at me. I expected to be mobbed and lynched.
But my reputation ran ahead of me—I was the pale-faced young foreigner that Slaf-Carch had befriended. I must be left unharmed.
I spent three days chariot-cruising through farms on the Borbel side of Babylonia. I picked up the trail of the First Serpent several times, but failed to find him.
The Second Serpent walked into my path and I carted him back to the palace. In all his rags and filth he pranced into Jipfur’s presence with an outlandish air of showmanship. He got out a bagful of magic boxes and colored feathers, and uncorked a rigmarole of incantations to unheard of gods, changing his facial mask with every change of gods.
The more the Serpent prayed and pranced, the worse Jipfur felt.
“Get out! I’ve had enough. Go back and hound the people. That’s all you fakirs are good for.”
I stalled the fellow at the door to ask him a question. His magic boxes had reminded me of the vocoder and my foolishness in trading it off to a Babylonian junk man. I described the thing from all angles. But the Second Serpent had never seen it.
I ran across Serpent Number Three in a busy market place. I recognized him by his enormous hunch-back; coming closer, I saw the grotesque mask of black-and-white circled eyes that I had remembered from my first glimpse of the trio in the marshes. Those ring-eyes had since become a familiar face to me from public meetings and parades that brought rich and riff-raff together.
Serpent Number Three was engrossed in a cracker-barrel discussion of Babylonia’s economic system when I interrupted him. He turned his frozen ring-eyes on me. I wondered whether he was grinning or scowling inside the mask.
He came.
“Very fancy,” he commented, as we drove up to the front entrance of the palace. “You know we Serpents always enter through the tunnels under the inner court.”
“You’re more than a Serpent today,” I said. “If you can tell Jipfur what’s wrong with him you’re more than a doctor.”
As he hobbled out of my chariot I was amused at myself for having been so chatty with such a ragged creature—but after all, he was reasonably clean, and that set him apart from the other Serpents.
I watched him ascend the steps past the scowling guards. For a man handicapped not only with a huge misproportioned back but also a peg leg, he carried himself with a remarkable bearing.
Again I mused upon my vagaries of sympathy for a Serpent—indeed, it was admiration. However illogical, I began to wonder whether he might have a brand of magic up his sleeve that would shake Jipfur out of his nervous breakdown.
But by the time I had turned my chariot over to the stable slaves and entered the palace, it was all over for the Third Serpent. He had shot his wad, point-blank, and blasted Jipfur into an unholy rage.
Six guards with gleaming battle axes marched him down to a dungeon and locked him up.
I turned to Kish. “How in the name of Marduk did he earn a jail term?”
“He said that Jipfur’s trouble came from trying to carry too big a weight,” said Kish. “He said the weight was black guilt.”
“That Serpent is nobody’s fool,” I said. “I wonder what he’s up to.”
“He’s done,” said Kish. “The big boss booked him for an early execution—on religious grounds.”
I gave up expecting any help from doctors and men of magic, though I went on searching fruitlessly for Serpent Number One. For more reasons than one Jipfur was anxious to see him.
One day I returned to the palace to discover that a famous Egyptian wise man, sojourning with the Babylonian king, had paid a call to Jipfur, made the perfect diagnosis, prescribed the perfect cure.
A fanfare of trumpets called all the officials of the palace into assembly, and Jipfur himself marched before us to announce the great news. The room grew tense with silence. Obviously the Egyptian wise man had struck upon something vital, for Jipfur was almost his old self again—straight, brittle, arrogant.
“The flames that have tortured me are subsiding,” he said. “The gods be praised, I have been visited by one who saw through my troubles. I must break down a barrier which Slaf-Carch built before me.”
Kish, sitting beside me at the rear of the room, whispered, “Here it comes!”
“That barrier has been a trap for me. Some men can live in traps, but not Jipfur.”
He filled his chest, tossed his head insolently.
“All my life I have won everything I sought, I have wanted for nothing. In order to be myself I must never want for anything. To live, I must remove the barrier. That is what the wise man from Egypt told me. I shall obey him.”
Jipfur paused for a brief breathless moment. Then—
“No matter what the voice of Slaf-Carch has said—no matter what his voice may say—tomorrow I shall marry the yellow-haired foreigner girl named Betty.”
A loud and boisterous cheer thundered through the room, and dignitaries leaped to their feet to call for drinks and feasts.
I moved involuntarily toward the nearest exit, but Kish caught my arm and whispered, “Wait. Don’t hurry away. You’ll be seen. Besides, I’ve already taken care of everything.”
CHAPTER VIII
“You’re no chariot driver,” Jipfur snarled at me. “It’s no wonder you never found the First Serpent.”
“Yes, your honor,” I said.
“At the rate you’re going, you’ll never overtake her. She could outrun us on foot.”
“Yes, your honor.”
“Give me those reins. I’ll show you how to drive. I’ll wager in your foreign land the people travel no faster than the turtle crawls.”
“Very true, your honor,” I said.
Jipfur whipped up the horses, our chariot hummed along at a merry gait. He grumbled because Kish wasn’t able to attend him on this job. Only a cursed weakling, he growled, would let a few sore spots keep him off duty so long.
For my part, I was quite content to make this wild-goose chase, as long as Kish would keep Betty hidden. That was his clever scheme—and he’d planted the trail so skillfully that the bull moose was sure he would overtake her somewhere beyond Borbel.
“We’ve got to find her today,” Jipfur said for the twentieth time. “The people mustn’t know that she’s run away. She’d never live it down!”
Actually, Betty hadn’t run away. At this moment she was hiding in the tunnels below the palace.
But that hiding place couldn’t last long. Slaves were continually at work through these tunnels, carrying water for the fountain reservoirs. There were Serpents Four, Five, and Six—Jipfur’s confidential men—who entered at irregular intervals by these subterranean passages. And there was Serpent Number Three, of the hunch-back and wooden leg, a prisoner in an underground dungeon. He occupied a dangerous vantage point. How much he had seen of our clandestine maneuvers, how much he would tell to the guards was another mountain of worry.
“Take these reins,” Jipfur snapped. “I’ve got things to think about. How can I think when I’m
driving?”
I took the reins and Jipfur ordered me to drive straight into Borbel.
“We’ll pick up the First Serpent while we’re at it,” he said. “He’ll help us catch that runaway girl.”
“Where will we find him?”
“Right in the center of town. I can spot him in a street crowd as far as I can see.”
As it happened, Jipfur made his boast good.
We slowed up approaching a large crowd at the foot of the Borbel ziggurat. The center of attraction was the First Serpent.
He stood on the first level of the ziggurat making a speech. The crowd was so engrossed that no one noticed our approach.
“I’ve told you I want to confess!” he yelled. “By the gods, I’m going to confess! No matter what happens to me—or to someone else—I’ll be glad I’ve confessed!”
A hard gasp escaped Jipfur’s lips.
“The night it happened,” the First Serpent continued, as his spellbound audience leaned forward eagerly, “everything was pitch-dark. We approached the garden on foot—two of us—my master and I—”
“Quick!” Jipfur whispered to me. “Swing the chariot around . . . Careful! . . . Now—drive back to Babylon as fast as you can go!”
We slipped out of Borbel without creaking a wheel. Then we flew—and I mean flew. And Jipfur never said a word about the people in my foreign country being slow.
All he said was, “Help me into the palace, Hal. I’m sick!”
That night it was all over Babylon—the biggest news story of, the year: A Serpent had confessed before all Borbel. He had described precisely how he and his master—no other than the celebrated young patesi, Jipfur—had murdered Slaf-Carch! And the minute he had finished his speech the civil authorities had seized him, and burned him in a public bonfire!
Now the throngs were gathering outside the palace of Jipfur, clamoring for him to appear and make his confession.
Torchlight parades circled round and round. Shouting and rhythmic catcalls rang through the streets.
Every life inside the palace was in danger. If this savage multitude turned to mob violence, Jipfur’s friends and foes alike would be trampled under foot or caught in racing flames.
Jipfur’s order to his guards to “Disperse those howling idiots!” was no more effective than the barking of a dog. The guards shrugged in dismay. Their huge battle axes turned awkwardly in their hands. Though they had served Jipfur and his aristocratic sister all their lives, this ordeal shook their loyalties to the roots.
Jipfur’s sister said she would walk out on the steps and cry her brother’s innocence. Never had her queenly dignity failed to impress the masses of common people.
But the proud sister advanced only one step outside the door, when a shower of clods and eggs and stones brought her back, wailing like a spanked child.
The dignitaries put their heads together for one of their briefest conferences on record. They watched furtively as the street crowds gathered material for a bonfire; they talked business fast. In a moment they came up with their version of a bright idea.
They crowded around Jipfur, who was standing back among the pillars of the central hallway between trembling attendants bearing lighted candles.
“We’ve got it,” said one of the dignitaries. “The mob wants violence. We’ll give them violence. They want another life to pay for Slaf-Carch. We’ll give them another life. We’ll give them your prisoner—the Third Serpent.”
Jipfur nodded and turned to me, his eyes bugging with terror.
“Bring up the Third Serpent.” He handed me the key.
I knew what he meant: I should get a squad of guards to bring up the Serpent. But I had ideas of my own.
I picked up a lighted candlestick and skipped down the dark stairs. The echoes of the palace turmoil grew fainter. I hurried through the underground passages, came to the hub of several subterranean avenues, one of which led to the row of prison cells.
My candle cast broad stripes of shadows beyond the iron bars. I caught sight of the black and white circles of eyes—the mask of the Third Serpent. In the darkness I could not see his deformed, crippled figure—only his ghastly mask. He clacked across the stone floor on his peg leg to meet me.
I rushed on past his door. But my curious wisp of admiration for this strange creature stopped me. I went back and unlocked his prison bars.
“I’m taking a chance on you,” I said. “They want you upstairs. They want to throw you to the howling mob. But I’m turning you free. Watch your step.”
“And what happens to you,” he asked, “when you fail to deliver me?”
“I’m leaving,” I said. “While the mob howls—that’s the time for me to get away.”
“Alone?” he asked sharply.
Again I had that frantic urge to jerk his mask off—and see his hidden expression.
“Not alone,” I said. “I’m taking the yellow-haired girl—and possibly Kish.”
“Let me go with you, Hal,” he said. “You’ll need me before you get to Egypt.”
“How’d you know—”
“It’s the only safe way to go, if you mean to get out of Jipfur’s reach.”
“Yes, of course. But as to your coming—”
I hesitated, trying to bring myself to a decision. I thought of Betty—of the stormy night we once spent in a cave beside the Euphrates, not knowing that this ragged, grotesque, circle-eyed creature of magic was there too.
“Very well,” I said shortly. “Follow us when we leave. Meanwhile you’re on your own.”
Two avenues further on I rapped at a musty wooden door.
Betty was there, never more beautiful than by candlelight. Two girls—confidantes from her kitchen staff—were with her. Kish had brought them warning of the impending mob attack a few minutes earlier. From their frightened expressions they must have thought everyone upstairs was being murdered by this time.
I spoke in English.
“Betty, it’s time we made a run for it. Egypt. We’ll get Kish if we can. And there’ll be another—a bodyguard.”
Betty shook her head slowly, dazedly.
“We’ll go.” Her English words came forth like measured notes from low, soft chimes. “But not to Egypt.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you seen Kish?” she asked.
“Not recently—why?”
“He received a message—for you. One of your watchers—on the great ziggurat—”
“The time machine?” I gasped.
Betty nodded. “It came this afternoon—and left us this.”
She pressed the octagonal plate of glass in my hand. A paper message was fixed between the transparent layers. It was a note signed by Colonel Milholland. It read:
“I am still trying to bring you back from the past. I will rotate through several locations making two stops in each place, twenty-four hours apart. The time machine will come again tomorrow on the exact hour and in the exact spot that it deposits this glass plate today.
Colonel Milholland.”
I crept up the stairs muttering to myself about Joshua.
They say that Joshua once managed to make the sun stand still. If I could only have been blessed with that power, inverted, maybe you think I wouldn’t have sent Old Sol spinning around to tomorrow afternoon!
What a jam I had let myself into by freeing that hunchbacked Serpent. Tomorrow afternoon would never come for me, I thought. If those dignitaries still wanted someone to throw to the hungry mob, they were sure to think of me—after what I had done!
To my surprise I heard no hooting and howling of mobsters as I crossed the central hall. A chill of terror struck me. That silence must mean something dreadful.
Even when you’ve been thrown in with a brutal, conceited scoundrel like Jipfur, and you’ve hated his every deed, somehow it gets you, nevertheless, to think that good recent fellow-humans have turned on him and burned him at the stake.
But my tender sentiments were premature. I ha
d under-estimated Jipfur’s cleverness. As a patesi he was supposed to stand arm-in-arm with the Babylonian gods, and he probably knew just how far he could depend upon them in a crisis.
Somehow he and the dignitaries had got the torchlight multitude under control during my absence. The idea of throwing them a prisoner to burn had obviously been discarded. Jipfur was out on the steps making a speech.
I crept to the window and listened.
“In the name of Shamash, in the name of Marduk, in the name of Ishtar, I present myself before you. I have declared myself innocent of the dastardly deed with which a certain human Serpent tried to link my good name.
“But let my innocence be declared not by myself, nor by you, nor by any man. Let my innocence be declared by the gods.
“Tomorrow at high noon I shall ascend the steps of the king’s palace and stand upon the plaza for all to see me. Then and there, let the gods strike me dead if I have ever been guilty of raising a hand to kill or to harm one of my fellow men.”
CHAPTER IX
It was nearly noon.
Betty and I hurried toward the great ziggurat.
The wide inclined path up to the first level was like a street, always alive with pedestrians. A few yards up we stopped, gazed down over the edge.
“There’s your flat-headed little petrified man,” I said.
Betty smiled wistfully. “I suppose we’ll never see him again . . . But I’ll believe in that legend—forever!”
“Why don’t you look many times upon the river?” came a familiar voice.
We turned, and Betty shuddered, catching my arm. It was the Third Serpent, his mask of encircled eyes as impenetrable as ever. I hadn’t expected ever to see him again.
“I thought you were going to leave, Hal,” he said, shifting his huge back uncomfortably.
“We are,” I said, “but not for Egypt. We must hurry on.”
“When you come down from the tower,” he said, “I must thank you for freeing me.”
“We won’t be coming down,” said Betty, smiling mysteriously. We continued our ascent.
The Third Serpent hobbled along following us all that way to the third level and there, as we looked down over the sprawling city, he approached us again.