Robert Silverberg - Gilgamesh the King

"Why do you think there is a secret?"

"There must be. You have lived so long. You saw the Flood: that was ten lifetimes ago, or twenty; and yet you still sit here. All about you are men and women who seem as ageless as you. How old is Lu-Ninmarka? How old is Hasidanum?" I looked at the Ziusudra long and earnestly. My hands were trembling, and I felt within myself the first beginnings of the god-aura, the buzzing, the crackling and hissing, all those strange things that come upon me in the times when I am most coiled upon myself with need. "Tell me, father, how I too can defeat death! The gods in assembly conferred life on you: who will call them into assembly for me?"

"You are the only one who can do that," said the Ziusudra.

I could barely draw breath. "How? How?"

He replied in the most offhand manner, "First show me that you can master sleep, and then we will see about a mastery of death. You can slay lions, c greatest of heroes; can you slay sleep? I invite you to a test, a trial. Sit here beside me for six days and seven nights without sleeping; and then perhaps you may find the life you seek."

"Is that the path, then?"

"It is the path to the path."

The buzzing in my soul subsided. A new calmness came over me. He meant to guide me after all.

"I will attempt it," I said.

The test was severe indeed: six days, seven nights! How could any such thing be done by mortal man? But I was confident. I was more than mortal; so had I believed since my boyhood, with good reason. I had slain lions and even demons; I could slay sleep also.

Had I not gone day after day with no more than an hour or two of sleep in the seasons of war? Had I not marched through the wilderness by night and by day as though sleep were no need of mine? I would do it. I was sure of that. I had the strength; I had the zeal. I crouched on my haunches next to him and fixed my eyes on his pink smooth serene face, and set myself to the task.

And to my shame sleep came upon me in a moment, like a whirl wind. But I did not know that I slept.

My eyes were closed, my breath came thickly; as I say, it had happened in a moment. I thought I was awake and that I sat staring at the Ziusudra; but I slept, and I dreamed. In my dream I saw Ziusudra and his wife, who was as old as he; and he pointed to me and said to her, "Behold this hero, the strong man who seeks eternal life! Sleep came upon him like a whirlwind."

"Touch him," she said. "Wake him. Let him return in peace to his own land, through the gate by which he left."

"No," said Ziusudra in my dream. "I will let him sleep. But while he sleeps, wife, bake a loaf of bread each day, and set it here by his head. And make a mark on the wall to keep count of the days he sleeps. For mankind is deceitful; and when he wakes he will try to deceive us."

So she baked bread and marked markings on the wall each day, and I dreamed that I slept on, day after day, thinking I was awake. They watched over me and smiled at my folly; and then at last Ziusudra touched me and I awakened. But this too was still in my dream. "Why do you touch me?" I asked, and he replied, "To awaken you." I looked at him in surprise and told him hotly that I had not slept, that only a moment had passed since I had crouched down beside him and my eyes had not closed for so much as a moment of that moment. He laughed, and gently he said that his wife had baked bread each day while I slept and had set the loaves before me. "Go, Gilgamesh: count them, and see how many days you have slept!" I looked at the loaves. There were seven of them: the first was like a brick, the second was nearly as stale, the third was soggy. The fourth had gone white about the crust with mildew; the fifth was covered with mold. Only the sixth loaf was still fresh. I saw the seventh baking over the coals. He showed me the markings on the walls, and there were seven, one for each day. So I knew that I had fallen asleep despite myself; and I understood that I had failed in my undertaking. I was unworthy. I would never be able to find my way along the path to eternal life. Despair engulfed me. I felt death coming upon me like a thief in the night, entering my bedchamber, seizing my limbs in his cold grasp. And I gave a great groan and awakened; for all this was still in my dream.

I looked to the Ziusudra and I put my hand to my head as if to free it from a shroud. I was lost in my confusions. To sleep, believing I was awake, and to dream, and to wake within my dream, and then to awaken in truth-and still not to know whether I dreamed or waked, even now-ah, I was lost, I was lost!

I pressed the tips of my fingers uncertainly to my eyes. "Am I awake?" I asked.

"I think you are."

"But I slept?"

"You slept, yes."

"Did I sleep long?"

He shrugged. "Perhaps an hour. Perhaps a day." He made it seem as if to him the one was the same as the other.

"I dreamed I slept six days and seven nights, and you and your wife watched over me, and each day she baked bread; and then you awakened me and I denied that I had slept, but I saw the seven loaves before me. And when I saw them I felt death take hold of me, and I cried out."

"I heard your cry," said the Ziusudra. "It was a moment ago, just before you awakened."

"So I am awake now," I said, still unsure.

"You are awake, Gilgamesh. But first you slept. You were not aware of it: but sleep came upon you in the first moment of your test."

"Then I have failed," I said in a hollow voice. "I am doomed to die. There is no hope for me. Wherever I set my foot, there I find death-even here!"

He smiled a tender loving smile, as one might give a babe. "Did you think our mysteries could save you from death? They cannot even save me. Do you see that? These rites we observe: they cannot even save me."

"It is the tale they tell, that you are exempt from dying."

"It is the tale, yes. But it is not the tale we tell here. When did I say that I was exempt from dying? Tell me when I spoke those words, Gilgamesh."

I looked at him, bewildered. "There is no death, you said. Only do your task, and then there is no death. You said that."

"So I did. But you failed to take my meaning."

"I took the meaning that I thought was there."

"So you did. It was the easy meaning; it was the meaning you hoped to find; but it was not the true meaning." Again the tender smile, so sad, so loving. Gently, he said, "We have made our pact with death here. We know his ways, and he knows our ways; and we have our mysteries, and our mysteries defend us for a time from death. But only for a time. Poor Gilgamesh, you have come so far for so little!"

Understanding flooded me. I felt my skin prickling; I shivered with the chill of perception as the truth made itself manifest. I caught my breath sharply. There was a question I must ask now; but I did not know if I dared to ask it, and I did not think I would have an answer from him. Nevertheless after a moment I said, "Tell me this.

You are the Ziusudra: but are you Ziusudra of Shuruppak?"

He answered without hesitation. And what he told me was that which I had already come to comprehend.

"Ziusudra of Shuruppak is long since dead," he said.

"The one that led his people to the high ground when the rains came?"

"Dead, long ago."

"And the Ziusudra who came after him?"

"Dead, also. I will not tell you how many of that name have sat in this chamber; but I am not the third, nor the fourth, nor even the fifth. We die, and another comes to take the place and the title; and so we continue in the observance of our mysteries. I am very old, but I will not sit here forever. Perhaps Lu-Ninmarka will be the

Ziusudra after me, or perhaps someone else. Perhaps even you, Gilgamesh."

"No," I said. "It will not be me, I think."

"What will you do now?"