To the Land of the Living (22 page)

Enkidu crouched beside a wagon with an automatic weapon somehow in his hands, firing back–

A figure rising out of the closer helicopter, throwing something down – a fragmentation bomb, it was – a burst of black smoke, screams, caravan people sprawling everywhere, horribly mutilated–

And Enkidu still firing –

“No!” Gilgamesh cried. “Enkidu! No!”

But it was like crying out within a dream. He could do nothing. He was not a god; and this vision, he knew, was sealed already into the irremediable past. Enkidu, rushing wildly toward the closer helicopter as though meaning to tear it apart with his own hands – some man of the Later Dead, with close-cropped yellow hair and hard blue eyes, peering out in amazement, reaching behind him, coming out with a grenade, arming it and tossing it in the same instant – a moment of sudden fierce incandescence, like a tiny sun –
Enkidu caught within it, visible for a moment, staggering, falling –

Falling –

Then there was only nothingness where Enkidu had been. His spirit had been swept away once again to that mysterious place of death within death where those who perished in the Afterworld were sent. Where he would wait in limbo, a year maybe, a thousand years, half of eternity perhaps – there was no predicting it – until it was his turn to be given flesh and breath again, and be sent forth into the death-in-life of the Afterworld.

“Where will I find him?” Gilgamesh asked, numbed by loss.

And a voice replied, “You must seek him in Uruk of the treasures.”

Fiercely Gilgamesh shook his head. “There is no Uruk!”

“No? No? Are you sure, King Gilgamesh? Is that what the Knowing tells you?”

“Why-”

He looked. And saw. And the veils of memory dropped away.

Uruk
!

It lay glittering upon the breast of a broad dark plain, a white city bright as a jewel. There was the platform of the temples, there were the sacred buildings, there were the ceremonial streets. Uruk. Not the Uruk where he had been born and been king and died, but that other Uruk, New Uruk, the Uruk of the Afterworld, that great Uruk which he –

– had founded –

– had ruled for a hundred years, or was it a thousand –

– he – he – a king in the Afterworld –

He saw himself on the throne. Officers of the court all around him, and petitioners seeking favors, and emissaries from other principalities of the Afterworld. Saw himself issuing decrees, saw himself going over plans, saw himself greeting the generals of his victorious armies. Saw himself being king in the Afterworld as he had been in the world before the Afterworld. Saw it and knew it to be a true vision.

The Knowing came upon him like a torrent, sweeping away all the imagined certainties by which he had been living for so long. Why had he thought he was an exception to the rule that the
heroes in the Afterworld must recapitulate the struggles of their life-times? How had he deceived himself into thinking that he and Enkidu had spent all their thousands of years in the Afterworld merely wandering, and hunting, and wandering again, shunning the ambitions that raged like fire in everyone else? Of course he had sought to reign in the Afterworld. Of course he had brought followers together here once upon a time, and built a city, and made it magnificent, and defended it against all attack. How could he not have done such a thing? For was he not Gilgamesh the king?

And then – then –

Then to forget –

He understood now. There was never any trusting of memory in the Afterworld. How often had he seen that! Whole centuries might collapse into a single moment, and be forgotten. Whole empires might rise and fall and go unremembered. There was no history here. There was really no past, only a stew of events that did not form a pattern; and there was no future, and scarcely any present, either.

In the Afterworld everything was flux and change, though beneath the flux nothing ever changed. Gilgamesh had truly thought the lust for power had been burned out of him by time. Perhaps it had. But there was no longer any denying the things he had so long been able to hide even from himself. He knew now why all those little men engaged in conspiracies and revolutions and the other trips of power here in the After-world. Without striving, what is there to keep one from going mad in this eternity? He had put striving behind him, or so he thought. Perhaps. Perhaps. But perhaps he was not entirely done with it yet.

He stood stunned and gaping in the midst of Calandola’s terrible feast. Within him blazed the forbidden food that had opened his eyes.

Enkidu dead once more. Uruk real. Himself not yet entirely immune to the craving for power.

Now I have had the Knowing, Gilgamesh thought.

He dropped to his knees and covered his face with his hands and let great sobs of mourning rip through his body. But whether it was for Enkidu that he mourned, or for himself, he could not say.

*

“So soon?” Simon asked. “What’s your hurry? We need time to plan things properly.”

“I mean to set out for Uruk in five days or less,” said Gilgamesh. “You may come with me or not, as you please. I have my bow. I have my dog. I am well accustomed to traveling by myself through the wilderness.”

Simon looked mystified. “Just a day or two ago it seemed to me very doubtful that you wanted to go to Uruk at all. You didn’t even appear to believe the place was there. And now – now you can’t wait to get started. What happened that turned you around so fast?”

“Does it matter?” Gilgamesh asked.

“It’s your friend Enkidu, isn’t it? Some wizard here has told you that he’s waiting for you in Uruk. Am I right?”

“Enkidu is dead,” said Gilgamesh.

“But he’ll be reawakened to Uruk. By the time you get there, he’ll be waiting. Right?”

“That could be.”

“Then there’s no hurry. He’ll be there when you get there. Whenever that is. Relax, Gilgamesh. Let’s organize this thing the right way. Picked men, decent equipment, give the Land Rovers a good tuneup –”

“You do those things. I don’t plan to wait around.”

Simon sighed. “Rush, hurry, go off half-cocked, never stop to think anything through! It’s not my style. I didn’t think it was yours. I thought you were different from all the other dumb heroes.”

“So did I,” said Gilgamesh.

“Ten days?” Simon said.

“Five.”

“Be merciful, Gilgamesh. Eight days is the soonest. I have responsibilities here. I have to draw up a schedule for my viceroy. And there are decrees to sign, materiel to requisition –”

“Eight days, then,” said Gilgamesh. “Not nine.”

“Eight days,” said Simon.

Gilgamesh nodded and went out. Herod was waiting in the hall, cowering by the door, probably eavesdropping. Almost certainly eavesdropping. He looked up, his eyes not quite meeting those of Gilgamesh. Since the last visit to the cavern of Calandola, Herod had been remote, furtive, withdrawn, as
though unable to face the recollection of the terrible rite he had led Gilgamesh into.

“You heard?” Gilgamesh asked.

“Heard what?”

“We leave for Uruk, Simon and I. In eight days.”

“Yes,” Herod said. “I know.”

“You’ll be the viceroy, I think. I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t be.”

“You didn’t want this to happen.”

“I didn’t want to be viceroy, no. But I won’t be. So there’s no problem.”

“If you aren’t going to be viceroy, who will be?”

Herod shrugged. “I don’t have any idea. Calandola, for all I care.” He reached out uncertainly toward Gilgamesh, not quite touching his arm. “Take me with you,” he said suddenly.

“What?”

“To Uruk. I can’t stay here any longer. I’ll go with you. Anywhere.”

“Are you serious?”

“As serious as I’ve ever been.”

Gilgamesh gave the little man a close, long look. Yes, he did indeed seem to mean it. Leave the comforts and tame terrors of Brasil, take his chances roaming in the hinterlands of the Afterworld? Yes. Yes, that was what he appeared to want. Maybe the experience in the cavern beneath the city had transformed Herod. It was hard to imagine going through something like that and not coming out transformed. Or perhaps the truth was merely that sad little Herod had formed one more attachment that he felt unable to break.

“Take me with you,” said Herod again.

“The journey will be a harsh one. You’ve grown accustomed to ease here, Herod.”

“I can grow unaccustomed to it. Let me come with you.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You need me, Gilgamesh.”

It was all Gilgamesh could do to keep from laughing at that.

“I do?”

“You’ll be a king again when you reach Uruk, won’t you? Won’t you? Yes. You can’t hide that from me, Gilgamesh. I was there when you had the Knowing. I had the Knowing too.”

“And if I am?”

“You’ll need a fool,” Herod said. “Every king needs a fool. Even I had one, when I was a king. But I think somehow I’d do the other job better. Take me along. I don’t want to stay in Brasil. I don’t want to visit Calandola’s cavern again. I might want another dinner there. Or I might
become
dinner there. Will you take me along with you, Gilgamesh?”

Gilgamesh hesitated, frowned, said nothing.

“Why not?” Herod demanded. “Why not?”

“Yes,” Gilgamesh said. “Why not?” His own favorite phrase floating back at him. The great unending
Why Not?
that was the Afterworld.

“Well?” asked Herod.

“Yes,” said Gilgamesh again. There was some charm in the idea, he thought. He had come to like the little Jew rather more, since they had been in Calandola’s cavern together. There was weakness in him, yes, but there was a strong humanity also. And Herod was intelligent, and shrewd besides: a good combination, not overly common. He could be a lively companion, when he wasn’t buzzing and chattering. A better companion, very likely, than old wine-guzzling Simon. And possibly Herod wouldn’t buzz and chatter quite so much, while they were on the march, out among the rigors of the back country. It might almost make sense. Yes. Yes. Gilgamesh nodded. He smiled. Yes. “Why not, Herod? Why not?”

The gritty smear of browns and yellows that was the western coastal desert of the Afterworld appeared to stretch on before Gilgamesh and his companions for a million leagues: past the horizon, and up the side of the sky. Perhaps it actually did. The narrow crumbling highway that they were following was vanishing behind them as soon as they passed over it, as though demons were gobbling up its cracked and pitted paving-stones, and ahead of them the road gave the impression of leading in several directions at once.

“– and surely you would agree, Gilgamesh,” Simon Magus said, “that it’s better to reign in the Afterworld than to be a slave in it!”

“I think you have that phrase a little wrong,” said Gilgamesh quietly. “But never mind. We have lost the thread of our discourse, if ever there was one. Did I mock you? Why, then, I ask your forgiveness, Simon. It was not my intention.”

“Spoken like a king. There is no grievance between us. Will you have more wine?”

“Why not?” Gilgamesh said.

Day and night the caravan had been rolling steadily onward across this dismal barren land. They were journeying up the coast above the island-city of Brasil, hoping to find a city whose very existence was at this moment nothing more than a matter of conjecture and speculation.

Gilgamesh drank in silence. The wine was all right. He had had worse. But he could remember, after thousands of years, the joy that had come from the sweet strong wine and rich foaming beer of Sumer the Land. Especially the wine: how many flagons he and Enkidu had quaffed together of that dark purple stuff, in the old days of their life! Indeed it made the soul soar upward. But in the Afterworld there was little soaring, and the wine gave small joy. It was only a momentary tickle upon the tongue, and then it was gone. You expected no more than that, in the Afterworld. Once, at the beginning, he had thought otherwise. Once he had thought this to be a second life in which true accomplishments might be achieved and true purposes won, and true pleasures could be had, and great kingdoms founded. Well, it was a second life, a life beyond life, no question of that. But the wine had only a feeble savor here. As did a woman’s body, as did a steaming haunch of meat. This was not a place where real joy, as he remembered it, was to be had. One simply went on, and on and on. The Afterworld was by definition meaningless, and so all striving within it was meaningless also. He had come to that bleak awareness long ago. And it had puzzled him then that so few of these great heroes, these sultans and emperors and pharaohs and all, had learned the truth of that in all their long residence here.

He shook his head. Such thoughts as these were not appropriate for him any more. No longer could he look with
contempt on other men’s ambitions, ever since he had had the Knowing of his soul at the hands of Imbe Calandola in Brasil.

He reminded himself that he too had dabbled in kingship in the Afterworld: even he, aloof austere Gilgamesh. Had quested for power in this chaotic place and gained it, and founded a great city, and ruled in high majesty. And then had forgotten it all and gone about the Afterworld piously insisting that he was above such worldly yearnings.

It ill behooved him to scorn others for their ambitions and their pride in their achievements. He had forgotten his own, that was all. You could forget anything in the Afterworld. He knew that now. Memory was random here. Whole segments of experience dropped away, thousands of years of hurly-burly event. And then would return unexpectedly, leading you into the deepest contradictions of spirit.

Gilgamesh wondered whether the fever of power-lust that he had claimed so to despise might not seize him again before long. The Afterworld was a great kindler of opposites in one’s breast, he knew: whatever you were most certain you would never do, that in time you would most assuredly find yourself doing.

“
Look
at this place!” Simon muttered. “Uglier and uglier. Worse and worse!”

“Yes,” said Gilgamesh. “We have reached the edge of nowhere.”