Robert Silverberg - Gilgamesh the King

At the hour of my departure I embraced Shulutula and pledged him once more that I would shield his city against the ambitions of the king of Ur; he slew a goat and poured out a libation Of blood and honey at the main gate to insure my safe passage home; and then I rode out into the morning. We left the city by the Gate of the Abyss and went past the high dunes and a great grove of thorny kiskanu-trees, almost a forest of them: when I looked back, I saw the towers of the palace and temples of Eridu rising like the castles of demon princes against the pale early-morning sky. Then we crossed a rough stony ridge and went down into the valley, and the city was lost behind us.

Ninurta-mansum knew very well who I was and what was likely to happen if I fell into the hands of some patrolling squadron of men from Ur. So he gave that city a wide berth and swung around instead into the forlorn and desolate land on the western side of Eridu. It was all wasteland here, and a bleak bitter wind blew: the sand swirled up and took the form of tenuous ghosts whose melancholy eyes did not leave me all the day long. But I was not afraid. They were nothing more than swirling sand.

The asses seemed tireless. They flew onward hour after hour and seemed to know neither hunger nor thirst nor weariness. They could have been enchanted, or perhaps demons placed under a spell, so tireless were they. When we halted at sundown, they looked scarcely winded. I wondered what the beasts would do for water in this wilderness; but Ninurta-mansum began at once to dig, and straightaway a cool sweet spring came bubbling up out of the sand. Beyond doubt the blessing of Enki was upon that man.

When we no longer ran much risk of meeting warriors of Ur, the charioteer began to guide us closer to the river. We were on the Buranunu's sunset side and had to cross it somehow to reach Uruk; but that was no great task for Ninurta-mansum. He knew a place where at this time of year the river was shallow and the bottom was firm, and took us across there. We had one bad moment when the leftmost ass lost his footing and went down, which I thought woul pull the whole chariot over. But Ninurta-mansum gripped the trace and leaned all his strength into holding us upright. The other thre asses stayed firm. The one that had stumbled came up out of th river snorting and spewing, and got himself in balance; and we cam, out safely on the river's sunrise bank. Perhaps not even Namhan could have managed that.

Now we were in lands tributary to Uruk. The city itself was stil some leagues to the northeast. I did not know whose land we ha( entered, whether it was Inanna's or An's or some magnate's of th~ city-it might even have been mine, for I had vast holdings in thi: district-but whatever it was, temple land or private land, it wa~ land of Uruk. After my long absence I felt such joy at seeing thes~ rich fertile fields that I came close to leaping down from the chario and embracing the earth. Instead I contented myself with a libatiot and the brief rites of homecoming. The charioteer knelt beside me stranger though he was in Uruk. He was a holy man, that charioteer holier than some priests and priestesses I have known.

We were encountering farming folk now, and of course they knew me for their king, if only from my height and bearing. They ran alongside the chariot shouting my name: I waved, I smiled, I made the signs of the gods to them. Ninurta-mansum reined the asses in and we moved at a slow trot, so the people might keep up with me. They gathered in number, coming in from this field and that as the word spread, until there were hundreds of them. That night when we halted they brought us the best that they had, strong black bern and the red beer they like so much, and the wine of dates, and the roasted meat of calves and sheep. And they came one by one fox hours, weeping with gladness, to kneel before me and express theii thanks that I still lived and ruled over them. I have had richer feasts, but none, I think, that has touched me so deeply.

Of course the news that I was approaching the city preceded me to Uruk. It was what I intended. I was sure that Inanna had used my absence to take great power into her grasp; I wanted that power to begin to slip from her, hour by hour, as the citizens whispered among themselves of the coming return of their king.

Then at last on a day when heat danced in the sky like the waves of the ocean I beheld the walls of Uruk rising in the distance. "return," she replied with no trace whatever of joy in her tone, "and requires of me that I convey you now to the place of purification which we have erected outside the walls." My eyes went wide. "Purification? Have I become unclean, then?" Blandly she said, "In dreams the goddess has followed your wanderings, O king. She knows that dark spirits have impinged on your soul; and she would cleanse you of their malign force before you come into the city. It is her way to serve, and this is her service: surely you know that."

"Her kindness is too great."

"It is not a question of kindness, O king. It is a question of the health of your soul, and of the safety of the city, and of the divine balance and order of the realm, which must be maintained. And so the goddess has decreed these rites, out of her great mercy and love."

Ah, I thought. Her great mercy and love! I nearly burst out in laughter! But I did not: I held myself in check. Well, I told myself, I will play this game out to its end. In my most courteous and formal way I said, "The mercy of the goddess is sublime. If my soul is at risk, it must be cleansed. Lead me to the place of purification."

As I stepped down from the chariot Ninurta-mansum glanced toward me, and I saw him frown. It should have been no concern of his that I might be giving myself over to treachery: he was Shulutula's man, not mine. Yet he was trying to warn me. I realized that he was one who would die for me, if needs be. Giving him a reassuring clasp on the shoulder, I told him to take the asses to graze but not to get too far away from me. Then, going on foot, I followed the three priestesses of Inanna toward the pavilions below the walls.

Plainly she had been a long time in planning this. What was virtually a holy precinct had been constructed out here. There were five tents, one large one with the reed-bundles of Inanna mounted in the sand before it, and four lesser ones in which all manner of sacred implements seemed to have been stored-braziers, incense-burners, holy images and banners, and the like. As I came near, priestesses began to chant, musicians to pound on their drums and blow into their fifes, temple dancers circled round and round me with joined arms. I looked toward the main tent. Inanna herself must wait in there for me, I thought, and suddenly my throat was dry and fiery knots tightened in my gut. Was I frightened? No, it was not exactly fear; it was a sense of some great finality closing in upon me. How long was it since she and I had been face to face? What transformations had she accomplished behind my back in the city, since then? Surely she meant to work my undoing today; but how? How? And how might I defend myself?. Ever since my childhood-when she had been little more than a child herself-my fate had been entwined with this dark-souled woman; and it seemed certain that I was approaching now, within this great tent of scarlet and black that rose before me on the plain of Uruk, the ultimate collision of our destinies.

But I was wrong once again. The three priestesses raised the curtain of the tent a little way and held it back, indicating to me that I should go inside. I entered, and found myself in a perfumed place of rich lustrous mats and sheer draperies; and awaiting me at the center of it, seated kneeling on a low couch, was a woman of voluptuous form whose body was bare except for a glowing pendant of gold that hung between her breasts and the thick-bodied olive-hued serpent of the goddess, which was wrapped like a rope about her waist, moving in slow sliding pulsations. But she was not Inanna. She was Abisimti the holy courtesan, she who had initiated me into the rites of manhood long ago, she who had done the same for Enkidu when he dwelled in wildness on the steppe. I had been set and braced for Inanna; the surprise and shock of finding someone else in Inanna's place so stunned and staggered me that I recoiled and found myself all but hurled into my fit. I felt myself going over the brink of an abyss. I swayed; I shook;! pulled myself back with the last of my strength.