Death by Water

by Alessandro Manzetti

He lay in bed staring into the dark, seeing nothing. He must have slept just a little, even without the pills. Or maybe he was half-awake and half-asleep, asleep enough anyway to dream or imagine he dreamed. He heard the sound of the door to the patio sliding open and sliding closed again, followed by the damp slap of her feet crossing the tile floor. He heard her stop just outside the bedroom door and then, even though the door never opened, he sensed her on the other side of it, on his side, gliding slowly across the carpet and toward him. On the carpet, her feet didn’t make a sound. There she was, in the darkness reduced to a dim looming shape, just above him. And then she pulled back the covers and slid into the bed, beside him.

  He held very still. He could hear the sound of her breathing but couldn’t sense her chest rising despite her lying right next to him. Perhaps she was breathing very shallowly.

  What happened to you, he said, or thought he said.

  What do you mean? she asked.

  One minute you were there and the next you weren’t. Where did you go?

  I’m right here, she said. What makes you think I ever went anywhere at all?

  He did not know how to respond to this and so he said nothing. And then she reached across the bed and laid her arm over him. He felt the blanket growing damp against his chest, rapidly soaking through. He sensed her face close to his, and then her lips touched his and his mouth began to fill with water.

  Wake up, he told himself, wake up.

  THREE

  He awoke in the shower, fully clothed, water pouring over his head. He was choking, uncertain how he had gotten there. Why was he fully clothed? Hadn’t he just been in bed? He stripped off his sodden clothes and left them heaped on the floor. He dried off, then turned off the bathroom light so as not to wake up his wife, and opened the door to the bedroom.

  The bedroom was very dark. His eyes seemed to be having difficulty adjusting. He fumbled his way across the darkened bedroom, shuffling cautiously forward until he touched the dresser. He felt its top drawer into existence and opened it, but what was inside felt wrong: smooth, slick. His wife’s underthings, he suddenly realized: he was standing before the wrong dresser. The room he was imagining in his head slid to one side. He sidestepped once, then again, then a third time, until he was sure the dresser he felt in front of him was his own. But I was sure the first time too, he thought, and I was wrong.

  He opened the top drawer and reached in, felt the familiar fabric. He slipped on a pair of briefs. By now, his eyes had adjusted just enough that he could barely make out the shape of the bed. He moved toward it until his shins were touching the mattress.

  He pulled the covers back and slipped in beneath them. His wife rustled beside him, gave a soft moan.

  What is it? she asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”

  Where were you? she asked.

  “I’m right here,” he said. “I never went anywhere at all.”

  She gave a little moan but said nothing further. Soon he could hear the sound of her breathing, slow, regular. For once, even without the pills, he felt sleepy too.

  Only as he was drifting off did he remember that his wife had vanished, was probably dead, probably drowned.

  Just as he soon will be as well. Not the next night, nor the next, nights when he again awakens in the shower, sputtering, fully clothed, no idea how he has gotten there, but the third night, yes, that will be his last. The night when his dead wife, increasingly persuasive, says to him, Honey, showers are nice, but to relax, really relax, there’s nothing like a long, long bath.

  A bath, he answers, dully.

  Sure, she says, then gives a little shrug. Or a swim, she says. She turns and leans toward him, and despite the darkness he can see her clearly, the fine bones in her face, her full white teeth, her hair impossibly undulating back and forth in the air. She leans closer and touches him, just with the tips of her fingers, then pulls away. He doesn’t feel them, the fingers, but where they have been his skin is damp.

  I know what’s good for you, darling, she says. Trust me.

  He isn’t sure how long it has been since he has had anything to eat. Hours at least, maybe days. He isn’t sure how long it has been since he felt rested. His thoughts flit everywhere at once. He has difficulty holding any single thing in his head.

  And then finally something does hold:

  Yes, a bath sounds nice.

  Or maybe even a swim.

  BORN OF DARK WATERS

  by Michael H. Hanson

  And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,

  for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods?

  —Thomas B. Macaulay

  It was 2320 B.C., and La’ibum of Mesopotamia was a warrior in search of great victory. In truth he was an heir to a dynasty, but at the age of seventeen had decided to escape his upcoming duties and responsibilities for one last summer adventure before taking on the crown. On a warm June night, disguised in ragged clothes, and accompanied by a mere four dozen manservants, his train of asses and camels slunk out of the Akkad city proper by moonlight.

  He had but one month to reach the island of Thera and its annual blood games, rumored this year to be the largest and greatest gathering of champions in the history of the world. La’ibum needed to prove his worth and manhood, that he was more, much more than a well-oiled and perfumed offspring of luxury and power.

  Now if he could only make it to the nearest port before his mother awoke.

  Four weeks later, La’ibum’s rented sailing barge and its well-paid six-ship Phoenician pirate escort arrived at the main harbor of Thera. Standing on the bow of his vessel with his unusual stowaway-turned-companion Goodswap the trader, La’ibum smiled. The island kingdom was an impressive sight. The secondary homeland of all Minoans was singularly distinguishable by its double-ringed, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree harbor that circled its very heart, not to mention the multiple hot springs that released beautiful plumes of steam high into the air.

  The rough oblong of the island’s perimeter was twenty-five miles wide by three hundred miles long. The two-hundred-yard wide opening to the circular, inner harbors was guarded by two huge structures, twin fifty-foot-tall statues of ferocious bulls, cast in bronze and plated in polished elephant ivory. Large ruby gems marked their eyes and steam regularly issued from their nostrils.

  “Everything you expected?” Goodswap asked, his ungainly Petasos hat warping in the wind.

  “More so,” La’ibum laughed, “even after your weeks of lessons and instructions my friend.”

  “I only taught your personal guard the basics needed to survive thievery, kidnapping, poisoning, and other close physical assaults when escorting you through the odd city street, or more importantly, the arena and its sports fields in the heart of the city proper.” Goodswap said.

  “It is really that bad?” La’ibum asked.

  “And most of the thousands of these perpetrators are street urchins,” Goodswap said, “dressed in rags, dirty and pathetic at first glance, most not more than ten years of age. My advice is to keep your sixteen guards about you at all times, and that the rest of your manservants be forbidden from traveling about on their own.”

  “Your advice is much appreciated, Goodswap, not to mention your wonderful regional history lessons.”

  “You paid for it,” Goodswap replied, “I give nothing away for free.”

  “What?” La’ibum replied. “That ancient trinket? A bronze medallion with spells mostly worn off. I think I got the better part of the bargain.”

  “Nonetheless, a fair trade,” Goodswap said, “and having reached our destination, I must leave your side now, lad, to be about my business. I dare say you may glimpse me off and on during the next week. Pray forgive me if I do not take heed. As a trader I have many, oh so many bargains and contracts to fulfill in such a short amount of time. Fare thee well.”

  La’ibum spun around but too late. As he had many times these past few weeks, the lanky, well
-shaved, towering form of Goodswap, swarthy skinned with long black hair and dark penetrating eyes, had simply disappeared. Much as his servants tried, they could never find the odd, dark-purple-robed man’s hiding place upon the ship. Goodswap came and went as he pleased over the endless sea journey. At first this annoyed La’ibum, but after several days he grew to like the mystery of the wise man. Perhaps he was part wizard. La’ibum leaned his head back and laughed to the bright sun. This adventure was proving to be everything he had hoped it would.

  With sails down and oars put to water, it took a full hour to circulate the port waters and finally dock at an empty pier. Gold coin sufficed to secure their anchorage with the pier official for the full week, and La’ibum quickly acquired an adequate translator and tour guide to lead him and his personal guard to whatever holy official was in charge of registering for the games.

  The streets of Thera were colorful, fast rivers of humanity. More so than in any of his previous travels, La’ibum was delighted by the multifaceted nature of multiple races (many he had never seen before) that traveled from all the distant reaches of the world to converge on this one island. Ivory skin giants with blue eyes and long flaxen or fiery red hair and beards, equally tall barbarians with coarse hair and skin as black as night sky, and everything in between. And all of them were decorated in an endless variety of chromatic feathers, animal hides, and variations of fabric, metal, and seashell armor.

  The fierceness, bulging muscles, and openly displayed scars gave La’ibum more than a few pauses as he handed a small leather bag of silver coins to the appropriate Bull Temple monk who, in return, gave La’ibum three small ivory markers and a sheet of vellum listing the various open tournaments that could be entered shortly after sunrise each morning. The monk painted La’ibum’s naked chest with two handfuls of blood from a recently slaughtered bull and spouted out a short prayer which La’ibum’s translator later told him was an admonition to die well and bravely.

  A more wary and sober La’ibum returned to his ship near sundown, waving away the usual comforts of a female slave and wine for a long and troubled sleep.

  Day two of the blood games and La’ibum had learned much about life and death, and his own soul. On the first morning he had almost entered the taurokathapsia in one of the four sports fields that surrounded the steaming lake at the very center of the island. As he approached the entry gate a hand slapped on his right shoulder. It was Goodswap. Even La’ibum’s guards were surprised at how the trader had slipped past them so easily.

  “These local lads have been practicing for this event for years,” Goodswap whispered. “Watch the first round and then decide if your own skills are better suited for another of the many events here this week.”

  La’ibum glanced back at the field for a moment, nodded his head, then turned to see that Goodswap had slipped back into the surrounding crowds unnoticed.

  The middle of the field filled with a line of fifty lads between the ages of thirteen and seventeen. One of the competitors would sprint forward. Simultaneously, from the end of the field, a full-grown aurochs would be released from a pen and immediately charge its competitor. What followed happened in a matter of seconds. The giant bull’s massive neckline was taller than an average man’s height. Its large twin horns were each as long as a short sword. When man and aurochs met, one of two things happened: either the athletic, unarmed competitor managed to awkwardly leap up between the two deadly horns to temporarily land on the sable back and somersault completely over the wild beast to freedom and life; or the unlucky lad was immediately impaled and trampled to death by this angry land monster. The results were roughly fifty-fifty for the first group.

  La’ibum slowly stepped back from the competitor’s gate as his skin turned whiter than normal. Later that day he approached the archers’ competition but quickly changed his mind, as it did not take much effort to remember his awkwardness with the bow over the past few years. Doing little to hide his frustration La’ibum strode back to his ship to bury his thoughts in sex and wine.

  This second day of the great games he had thought to enter the spear-throwing competition, but a single viewing of the first round showed Nubian hunters releasing weapons that flew more than twice as far as La’ibum had ever cast. Not to mention much more accurately. Pursing his lips he traveled to the other fields to see what competitions might appeal to him.

  At noon he entered an open round of free wrestling, where he managed to tie up and pin four separate opponents before being overwhelmed by a short but massively muscled, bald Egyptian. His conqueror was a good-hearted man who helped him back to his feet, bowed, and introduced himself as Ammon, captain of the royal guard for Pharoah Pepi I, to whose service he would return after the blood games ended. La’ibum bowed, slightly chagrined that the experienced warrior had so easily recognized his station, sure that his well-oiled locks, uncalloused hands, and fine tunic had given him away. Still, he had managed to hold the bulk of the stronger man off for a full five minutes before getting inexorably entangled and trapped.

  Dusting himself off and ordering his guards to ignore the bruises his skin advertised, La’ibum left the field a happy man. Sure, he did not make it to the final rounds that would have given him an opportunity to win a gold bull medallion, or better yet, a holy brand upon his right shoulder, but he had overcome his fears and survived his first day of battle. More than a few wrestlers had left the field with crippling injuries this day.

  On the third day of the games, the first half of the summer solstice, La’ibum found out that he had been earlier noticed by a respected noble Theran family, and after appropriate introductions had been made (including the gift of a foot-long, Akkadian-crafted solid silver bull from La’ibum to the household of Kallistoi), the future emperor of Akkad shared a magnificent lunch before the large arches of the island’s main temple which looked down from a great height upon all of the fields in the island center. It was an unimpeded view that allowed La’ibum to watch the early rounds of individual gladiatorial combat in the nearest sports field.

  Time and again La’ibum would see a warrior fall and he would unconsciously grasp his own hip-slung sword, a perfectly balanced weapon, finely honed and cast of iron, an oddity in this land of bronze weapons. La’ibum had spent many years drilling with this sword and secretly earning several bruises and now-hidden scars during secret late-night fencing lessons with his father’s captain of the guards, Shulki. It was death for any of non-royal blood to even touch royalty at court in Sumeria, but La’ibum was clever enough to know that he would only excel at blade combat if he suffered the same conditions as real soldiers, and so he had made a deal with Shulki, and earned his sword craft through honest time and effort. And now, La’ibum’s pride was daring him to join in the conflicts he saw, though at this distance individual figures looked as small as insects, even under this bright sunlight.

  Several times during the course of the morning one or more of the Kallistoi servants would raise signal flags of various bright colors and swing them back and forth in the wind. After watching an hour of this La’ibum approached one servant and asked for an explanation.

  “The different gatherings of heroes upon all of the fields look to us for directions, milord,” Veros said. “The movement of competitors and warriors to different parts of each field, the signaling of the beginning and end to each event, the distribution of weapons, the commands to hospital carts and personnel to particularly bloody altercations, all of this is initially handled from this mount.”

  La’ibum then asked for a detailed description of every single flag command. This took nearly an hour as there were also numerous combinations of individual flag commands that allowed for complex interpretations in the movements and repositioning of large numbers of combatants upon the sports fields. Afterward, La’ibum spent five minutes reciting back the flag commands to Veros with nary an error. The surprised servant smiled and bowed to La’ibum.

  “I must make a confession, young La’ibum,”
Master Kallinoros said when the Akkadian returned to the meal, “I hoped to dissuade and distract you from joining in the more mundane competitions today and tomorrow. No, no, let me finish. Your bravery and honor are not at question at this meal, especially after your fine day in the wrestling venue. Yes, I admit to being a fan. But you see, I feel that these group combats, now and tomorrow, are more free-for-all brawls for the lower classes and somewhat inappropriate for a nobleman of your fine breeding and title.”

  “Milord,” La’ibum said with tact, “you are both wise and generous. But I must ins— ”

  La’ibum stopped talking as he had just seen Goodswap, standing at the periphery of the meal on the far side of an elaborate marble fountain carved into the shape of a lovely mermaid. Goodswap had made eye contact and shook his head quickly, twice.

  “What must you, lad?” Kallinoros asked.

  “Uh, I mean to say,” La’ibum stuttered, “I must toast you and your family for your generosity of spirit.”

  La’ibum raised his bronze cup and spoke a long and holy Akkadian oath of thanksgiving.

  “Tell me, La’ibum,” Kallinoros said, “are you aware that there are also competitions of the mind here at Thera this week? Have you ever played table games back in Akkad?”

  “Why of course.” La’ibum smiled. “I thoroughly enjoy Senet, Mehen, a few Jiroft variations, Nard, and of course the royal game of Ur.”

  “Wonderful,” Kallinoros laughed, “you must join me here tomorrow to teach me all you know of those games while we watch the crowd blood-brawls. They are the most renown and dangerous of the competitions this week and the view from up here is, of course, unmatched. And my daughter Oreanos will certainly be happy to play with us.”

  La’ibum glanced politely at Kallinoros’s smiling daughter, a gorgeous lass of fifteen and shapely figure, olive-tinged skin, with green eyes and lovely, long ebony hair. It was obvious to La’ibum’s court-trained mind that the island’s rulers were considering a potentially profitable marriage to the future ruler of Akkad, a city-state with the power to ensure protected inroads to trade from the sea to inner Mesopotamia.