Legends of Garaaga

by Paul E. Cooley

  Whether column, ceiling, or wall, the chosen three were given 22 sunsets to finish their contribution. Archelon, the great maker of maps and historian of place, had been among the chosen ten times.

  The hall of maps was his domain and no artist dared profane his sanctuary. The hall's ceiling was painted and etched with great dark, rugged mountains, grainy deserts, and forests of green.

  Each time he was chosen, he added a new layer to his own refuge. When the old man's tenure finally ended, his successor, and all those to follow, would have to live with Archelon's visions. Just as history was sacrosanct, so were the Library's adornments; once a fresco, frieze, sculpture, or painting was added, it would remain until the Library crumbled into dust.

  Once he began reading the new tablets, the mention of Trianni's home of Gujaritan had stuck in Herodot's mind. The descriptions of the forest, the green river, the great hills to the east, painted a picture he desired to see.

  At second break, Herodot had asked Akakios for permission to see Archelon. Akakios had snickered. "If you think that senile genius can help you, please do. But remember Herodot--you're not here to annotate history. You are here to translate it. Not correct it. Not question it. Just translate it."

  The words had rankled him. He owed Akakios his position at the Library. The stalwart, grim Greek had been responsible for pulling him out of the Jewish orphanage and changing his life. But the older Herodot became, the more he realized just how close-minded his patron was.

  Herodot stood at the hall's entrance, his eyes staring up at the arched ceiling. The map-maker truly was a great artist.

  "What can I do for you, scribe?"

  Herodot leveled his eyes. Archelon twirled his beard. The man's face was grim and uninviting, but his old brown eyes sparkled.

  "Afternoon, sir. My name is--"

  "Herodot," Archelon finished. The old Greek smiled. "Yes, I know who you are, boy. Come."

  He nodded and walked into the room as Archelon shuffled to a table along the wall. The old man groaned with effort as he sat upon the cedar table.

  "To what do I owe this visit?"

  "Thank you for allowing me--"

  The Greek waved a gnarled hand. "You are one of the Library's denizens, my son. All are welcome." The Greek winked. "Even Jews."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Maps, maps, maps," Archelon said as he pointed to the shelves of scrolls. "Surely you came for a map?"

  "I'm not sure," Herodot said.

  "Not sure?"

  "I'm translating some Akkadian tablets and a strange name came up."

  The old man chuckled. "I believe Akkad and strange go hand-in-hand."

  "Yes, sir."

  "I take it this name belongs to a place?"

  "I--"

  "No," Archelon said and looked up at the ceilings. "Places belong to names. Yes, I like that better."

  Herodot said nothing.

  "What is this name?"

  "Gu--Gujaritan."

  "That is not an Akkadian name, my son."

  "No, sir."

  Archelon's eyes snapped back to Herodot's, his mouth set in a frown. "Indus?"

  "Yes, sir. I think so."

  "Hmm." The old man stroked his long beard. "Do you have any other information?"

  "Somewhere near Lothal?"

  "Ah!" Archelon yelled. He shuffled off the table. His bones creaked again and he let out a little groan of pleasure. "Lothal, Lothal, Lothal," the old man whispered as he walked toward the other side of the room. "Follow me, boy. And I shall show you wonders."

  Herodot did as he was bade, but walked with trepidation. The map-maker was well respected, but most thought Archelon had gone mad years ago.

  The old man walked to a wall of cedar blocks. The honeycomb stretched over five men high toward the ceiling. Each slot contained a number of large scrolls.

  Herodot inhaled the scent of the timber. He loved that smell. The wood was not only fragrant, but helped preserve the papyrus.

  "BOY!" Archelon shouted in Egyptian.

  Herodot stiffened. The man's voice sounded like a bird being strangled. He turned as he heard footsteps from behind.

  A small child ran into the room. The boy was dressed in a white tunic with gold colored fringes. The clean cloth made his skin look almost black. The newcomer bowed. Archelon didn't acknowledge his presence.

  "Nine and five. All of them."

  The boy nodded, rose, and quickly walked to a corner of the large room. Herodot watched in fascination as the child pulled a long wooden post from the wall. Offset metal spikes jutted from either side. Grunting with exertion, the boy used two of the spikes as handles as he dragged the makeshift ladder to the cedar honeycomb.

  "Nine and five," Archelon muttered.

  The boy pushed past Herodot without apology. He struggled to raise the ladder against the wall. Herodot leaned to help him, but the boy shot him an angry look. Confused, Herodot withdrew.

  Another grunt and the boy managed to pull the ladder flush against the shelves. "Nine and five," the boy said in broken Greek and then scrambled up the ladder. The wood creaked as it took his weight, but it held. When the boy reached the very top of the honeycomb, he slid his feet into the nearest hole and used his hands to grasp the top. He spider walked his way to the fifth hole in the row. Straining and grunting, the brown-skinned boy reached a hand into the nook and pulled out an oblong cloth bundle.

  "If you would, Herodot?" Archelon said.

  "If I would--"

  "Catch," Archelon said.

  The boy dropped the scrolls. Herodot gave a yelp of surprise but managed to get his sweaty hands beneath the package. A puff of dust rose from the cloth. "I--"

  "Another," Archelon whispered.

  Herodot moved his arms and caught the next load. Two more dropped. He managed to keep them from falling to the floor, but nearly lost his balance on the last.

  "Done," Archelon shouted in Egyptian.

  The boy nodded, reversed his spider walk to the ladder, and quickly made his way to the ground. He put his hands on the spikes as if to move the ladder.

  "Wait, boy." He turned to Herodot and took the topmost bundle from his arms. "Follow, scribe."

  Archelon made his way to a large cedar table against the west wall. He pulled loose the papyrus string and gently unfurled the cloth. The bright gold scroll ends twinkled beneath the rays of sunlight that flowed through the hole in the ceiling.

  "Lay the rest over there."

  Herodot followed the old man's gnarled finger and deposited the other bundles on the table's far corner.

  The papyrus whispered as Archelon unrolled the large scroll. Once the map was unfolded, the old man smiled. "This map is old, my boy. Very, very old." He turned to Herodot. "And it's the wrong one."

  He began the laborious process of rolling up the scroll and retying it. The old man reached across the table and grabbed the next bundle. He peered at it.

  "Perhaps," he whispered. He studied faded Greek letters burned into the dingy cloth. "No."

  Herodot watched as Archelon began unpacking the next one. The sunlight filtering through the square in the ceiling wavered. Herodot looked up and watched a cloud passing by.

  "Excuse me, sir. How do you keep the room from filling with dust or water?"

  Archelon turned, his face set in a grin. "My little boy over there climbs up on the roof and closes the hatch before nightfall."

  "Hatch?"

  "Yes. When Ptolemy designed the map-room, he made sure to provide us with natural light."

  "I've never seen any other hatches in the Library."

  Archelon shook his head. "That's because those damned fools don't have any love for the sun. Say it damages the papyrus or some nonsense." The old man handed two scrolls to Herodot and started laying out the third. "So what if it does? I can always redraw a map. If I can't see the map, it's useless. Ah!"

  "Sir?"

  "This is better." Archelon bent down to the table, his nose mere inches away from th
e scroll. Herodot peered over his shoulder. The old man put his index finger on a smudge of brown above an oval shape of blue. "Do you know what that is, scribe?"

  Herodot didn't answer.

  "That is Ur. Once a great empire, like Babylon. Now it's nothing. Just like Babylon." He turned to Herodot. "This map does not show Babylon, and Ur was some distance away from it, but you get the idea."

  "Yes, sir."

  The old man looked back down. "See this? This is the water that flows out from Ur into the sea." He dragged his index finger down an oblong shape of dull blue surrounded by brown. The blue was nearly choked at its end but trickled through into a large triangle that covered the rest of the map's left side.

  "I trust this map the most, young man. The old cartographers, if they can be called such, drew theirs from the memories and charts of uneducated barbarians. Usually known as soldiers." He winked at Herodot. "But this map?" He sighed. "This is one of mine."

  "Meaning?"

  Archelon stood as straight as he could, his vertebrae crackling like wet kindling. "Have you visited Akkad, young man?"

  "Of course not, sir."

  "Why not?"

  Herodot swallowed. "Because it no longer exists."

  "Ah," the old man raised his index finger in front of Herodot's eyes. "Yes it does. Of course it does. The dying leave corpses. The corpses are eaten, chewed, covered in dirt and sand, hidden from us. But they still exist."

  "I don't--"

  "How many of the dead do you think you stand upon, scribe?" Archelon raised his hands and looked around the hall. "Surely there were deaths in building this great Library of ours. Egyptians laboring to raise slabs, to secure its foundation, to construct its walls, its ceilings, its roof. You cannot tell me we do not stand upon the dead and forgotten.

  "If we dug through the bottom floor's stone and into the sand, I wonder what we would find. I wonder."

  Herodot said nothing. Archelon's beard dripped with spittle. During the old man's oratory, his eyes had grown wild.

  "And so with Sumer and its children Akkad and Babylon. Dead upon dead upon dead, stacked high into stone temples, city walls, streets. So, yes, young man, you could travel there. You could drift among the hulking corpses left behind, breathe in the scent of their decay and imagine their long dead majesty."

  Archelon turned back to the map. "And it's something you should do one day, Herodot. To study is not as important as to live. And no one can know the world without seeing it."

  Herodot cleared his throat.

  "Speak, young man. I'm not angry with you. Merely passionate," Archelon chuckled.

  "This map is yours," the scribe said in a shaking voice.

  "Yes."

  "And you trust it."

  "Yes."

  "But you haven't been--"

  Archelon's laugh sounded like a bird's dying screech. "I have been to Lothal. I traveled there in my younger days. Traveled with Romans." Archelon wrinkled his nose. "Hugged the coast for days and days. We met the storms. We met the lightning of the gods. And I knew sickness I'd never imagined possible," the old man's voice drifted into silence.

  The cartographer stood as still as a statue for a moment, his breathy wheeze the only sign of life.

  "Sir?"

  Archelon swung his head and stared at the scribe. "What-- What was it we were talking about?"

  "Mapping the coastline, sir."

  A wan smile appeared beneath the heavy beard. "Yes. Sorry, son. My mind wanders at times."

  Herodot said nothing.

  "I mapped the coast with the Romans. We traveled all the way to Lothal." He pointed back to the map. "Pomponious Mela and others contend that India begins up here." Archelon pointed off the map. "They are wrong. India is far larger than Pomponious or those other fools think."

  "Have you traveled much of it?"

  "No," Archelon admitted. "But there are maps made by Alexander's soldiers and other explorers. While I doubt their accuracy, the maps all seem to agree that India starts much closer. Perhaps even here." His gnarled index finger stabbed a point on the coastline.

  "How can you be sure?"

  "I can't. But I have spoken with the people of the Indus, including some tribes living near Lothal. There is no doubt in my mind the world is far larger than any of us guess."

  Insane, Herodot thought. The man is clearly insane.

  "Here's Lothal, young man." Archelon's finger hovered over a point on the coast. Greek letters spelled its name. "Do you see the tributaries? The rivers that span out? Your-- What did you call it?"

  "Gujaritan."

  "Your Gujaritan was probably along one of these rivers. Most of the tribes and villages sprang up near them. Although many were washed away by floods."

  "How do you know so much?"

  Archelon grinned. "As I said, I've been there. Pomponious and his ilk draw their maps with Rome as the center of the known world. They hardly leave their precious domiciles. Too much work for the pampered."

  "The Akkadian scribe said it was a five day journey to Lothal from Gujaritan."

  "Along the river?"

  Herodot nodded.

  "Then it should be somewhere near here." The old man's finger followed the edge of the river and stopped halfway up the blue line. "Probably no one there now."

  "Do you know of any who would have traveled that route?"

  Archelon scratched his head. "No one in the Library, certainly. I'd suggest you go to Ptolemy's private room and look there."

  "Cleitus suggested the same."

  The old man's grin faded. "Cleitus." Archelon leaned forward. "You should be careful of that man," he whispered. "He's his own creature. Always has been and always will be."

  Herodot wrinkled his brow. "What do you mean, sir?"

  He held a finger to his lips. "Watch. Listen. Speak as little as you need to. Especially if he's taken an interest in your work." Archelon turned back to the map. "This is my favorite map, young man. I was much younger when it was made. I'll never see Lothal again."

  He slowly rolled up the scroll. "When you leave the Library for good, my friend, travel. See these places and write about them."

  He tied up the bundle and placed it with the others. "Is there anything else I can do for you,?"

  Herodot shook his head.

  Archelon offered his withered hand. Herodot grasped it. They shook. "You are welcome here anytime, my friend."

  Scribe hall had emptied out. Isaac had urged him to quit for the day, but Herodot had begged off with the excuse his visit with Archelon had taken too long. Isaac grinned, pointed toward the Akkadian tablets and snickered. Herodot blushed as Isaac left the hall.

  The tablets describing Gujaritan were far more poetic than the old Tupšarru. Trianni, as he now called himself, seemed wistful and nostalgic by comparison. Herodot drank in the cuneiform, scratching the Greek equivalent words as best he could. He wondered if Trianni would be pleased he was being so meticulous, or if the long dead scribe would be annoyed.

  As he translated, he tried to imagine Trianni's voice. The man had always been a faceless, blurry image in his mind. Herodot had never even seen someone from the Indus. He only knew they were dark-skinned, much like Egyptians.

  But how they spoke? The sound of their words? How they dressed? In his tablets regarding Akkad, Tupšarru had described the city's denizens, their robes and cloaks and jewelry. But he had never described himself.

  As Trianni, he gave great details on the simple clothes the Gujaritan villagers wore, the foods they ate, their worship of the great river, and the seasonal hunts for meat. But still, the man hadn't scratched a symbol pertaining to himself.

  Herodot pushed aside the last tablet and stared down at the scroll. The Greek words had flowed like water from the stylus. He read the last bit again and felt a chill.

  It was the legend that held us together, bound us, and made us a people. Those, like me, who thought it a mere story, weakened those chains of community. I have much to answer for.
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  He sighed and looked out the nearest window. A light ocean breeze had started with the night. The sound of the waves was intoxicating and he yawned. The nearly moonless night made Ptolemy's naval signal fires that much brighter. Out there, on the waves, those boats were giving orders to the armies in the city and beyond.

  In the hall, with the sounds of the ocean so near, it was impossible to hear the clang and crash of sword on shield, the shouts of the fighters, and the screams of the dying. He would hear those when he finally retired to his cell.

  Herodot returned his eyes to the scroll. There was less than a tablet's worth of space remaining. He sighed as he blew on the ink to ensure it was dry, and then began rolling it back up. As he finished and the metal ends clinked together, he let out another yawn. Sleep would be wonderful. But first, he had to return the tablets to the storeroom.

  He tied a ribbon around the scroll, marked its edge with the reference numbers, and then placed it in the bin. The librarians would perform the cataloging in the morning and place it with the other Akkadian translations.

  The tablets stared at him from the table. Stifling another yawn, Herodot gathered the three clay tablets in his arms and walked toward the hall exit. The braziers were lit in the pathway to the storeroom. The narrow passage made him claustrophobic, but he managed to quell the sensation by taking deep breaths and focusing on his feet.

  Step. Step. Step.

  He looked up and found himself at the storeroom entrance. True to his word, the legionnaire had handled the issue with the grate. Large stones sat on each corner and held it in place. A somewhat less than elegant solution, but it appeared to be strong enough to keep another intrusion from occurring.

  Whereas the room had been in darkness the night before, it now blazed with light. The braziers had been filled with fresh fuel. Herodot grunted. As per usual, the Romans had overcompensated. Now the room was too bright. The possibility of a stray spark igniting centuries old papyrus and vellum didn't seem to occur to them.

  Herodot sighed. He was too tired to deal with it. He'd tell the soldier downstairs and make it his problem.