To the Land of the Living Read online

  But it was not to be.

  Empty and bleak as this country was, for the most part, yet it was not empty entirely. No part of the Afterworld could be, not the ice-entombed polar regions nor the blazing midworld belt nor this parched barren Outback; for there were uncountable billions of souls to house here—the souls, so it had been concluded by those who made it their task to study such matters, of everyone who had ever lived upon the former earth. And though the Afterworld was immense beyond the comprehension of even the wisest geographers, there was no territory of it that did not have its few scattered settlers or at least its roaming nomad packs. Gilgamesh and Enkidu were hard-pressed, as they made their zigzag random way across the face of the land, to maintain their solitude pure and unbroken more than a few days at a time.

  Now it was some dismal farm they stumbled across, with shimble-shamble barns of unpainted wood, and rooks and vultures perched in the crook-armed trees behind it, and a family of withered gray-faced folk struggling against the miserable land. And now it was some caravan plodding from hither to thither among the far-flung cities of the plain; and now it was a wandering pilgrim, a solitary like themselves. When they could, the Sumerians generally avoided those whom they encountered. But sometimes they could not avoid without giving needless and dangerous offense, or the only route ahead lay through populated territory; and sometimes, even, pressed by hunger or thirst or the simple need occasionally to hear the voices of their own kind, they chose of their free will to break their aloofness and allow themselves a few hours of company before moving on.

  Thus it was, almost despite themselves, that they fell in with these folk or these or these, and sat by their firesides and traded gossip with them and learned the names of princes and nations of the Outback, and of the vain ambitions and hollow dreams that drove them, the wars that were being fought here, the schemes and follies, the madness. Thus it was that the two Sumerians, who had dwelled for more years than they could remember among the turbulent cities that crowded the eastern coast of the great landmass that was the Afterworld, learned that even here in this wilder place that was the Outback the same lunacies held sway, the same insane attempts to replicate in this life the errors of that other one. So the truth sank home: humans are as humans do, there is no sanctuary from their frailty, all is the same everywhere no matter what sort of clothes are worn or languages spoken. It was a somber truth to learn, and Gilgamesh, searching in the misty depths of his time-choked memory, had the uncomfortable feeling that he was not learning it for the first time.

  Though they had rarely journeyed in the same direction more than three days running, they discovered that in fact they had been moving westward more often than not, and now were almost at the Outback’s farther end. This they learned in a place called Vectis Minima, which was a crossroads and a hostelry of five huts presided over by a pale-eyed old man with a face more pitted and baleful than the Moon’s. Here they came to take refuge from a cold black rain which fell in furling sheets that did not strike the ground, but nevertheless sent forth a chill that reached the bone. And here Gilgamesh asked, in an idle moment of curiosity, where they might be and what lay ahead.

  “You are some twelve days’ journey from the sea here,” the shriveled old innkeeper told them.

  “The sea? What sea is that?” Gilgamesh said, startled.

  “Why, the White Sea, the Demon Sea. What else? What other sea would you expect?”

  “To be sure,” Gilgamesh muttered. “But we are strangers from the east.”

  “Ah, the east,” said the innkeeper. “Vulking Land, you mean? Or Lord Wolfram’s Domain?”

  “Farther east than that,” said Gilgamesh. “A thousand leagues farther. Ten thousand, perhaps. Nova Roma was our last home.”

  “Nova Roma,” said the innkeeper, in a quiet way, as though Gilgamesh had named some other star. “Would you be of Nova Roma, then? Well, you are far from there now. Look you.” And he dipped his fingertip in the grim gray wine of the place, and drew a line on the peeling wooden tabletop. “Here. The sea is here, and we are over here. This is the road to Lo-yang, and this the road to Cabuldidiri. You know of those places? No? Well, you’ve missed very little. Straight on here, this is the road that leads to the isle of Brasil, which surely you know.”

  “Brasil?” Gilgamesh said. “What is that?”

  “I know of it,” said Enkidu suddenly. “By report, at least. It’s the famous island of wizards and sorcerers, is it not?”

  “So it is, the magical isle, the haunted isle,” said the innkeeper. “Where Simon Magus is king, and may all the demons preserve you from meeting him. Well, then, and these mountains here, these are the Mountains of the Moths”—he drew them in with stipplings of wine on the dry wood—“and beyond them we have five cities, by name Torfaeus, Gardilone, Pizigani, Camerata, and—and—well, there is a fifth, it does not come to my mind. Then here, as we proceed to the north—”

  “Enough,” said Gilgamesh. “You tell me more than I demand to know.”

  His mood had grown darker with each name the old man had rolled forth. He had not thought to come to the desert’s end so soon; but he realized now that it might not have been soon at all, that he and Enkidu might have spent years or even centuries in the wasteland since leaving the court of Prester John, while thinking it was only a matter of months. The passage of time was always uncertain here. And just ahead of them now lay a coastal land that was new to him, and one that was obviously much the same as the coast he had left behind, more cities, more kings, more scheming, more folly. The thing to do, he thought, was to turn and go back, into the heartland once more. Surely they had not exhausted it all.

  But that too was not to be. For they chose the road to the north, to the place that was called Cabuldidiri, thinking that from there they would cut back inland on some passable wilderness track. But they had gone no more than a league or two before the road began veering in a troublesome way toward the west, as if it were not of a mind to let them reach Cabuldidiri. They could see a valley far beyond, and a fair-sized town in it, resting upon a cleft between two slab-sided hills. Surely that town was Cabuldidiri. Yet the road would not allow them to go that way. Perpetually it swerved away. Even when they left the road and made their trek through the rough places that seemed to lead eastward, they found themselves moving before very long in the other direction.

  “What is this?” Enkidu asked. “Why does the city slip away from us, brother?”

  “Enlil only knows. Perhaps there’s no city there at all, or no road. Or wizards move the road each night, by way of amusing themselves.”

  “What will we do?”

  “Follow our feet,” said Gilgamesh. “And our feet will follow their destiny, and so we will learn our own.”

  The destiny of their feet seemed to deliver them into an ever-narrowing canyon that ran, so far as they were able to tell, from east to west. Though that was the opposite of the direction they intended to follow, they had no choice but to obey, for the land rose up on both sides of them like walls of glass and they were compelled into the canyon like animals driven into a trap. Gilgamesh found this irritating, and walked along sullenly, eyeing the towering ramparts to the right and to the left in search of some opening in them. But there was none. The walls, now so close on either side that Gilgamesh could almost touch them with both hands at once, had a bright sheen, like that of polished pink marble, and the narrow path beneath their feet was of red earth marked by lines of busy green-and-black insects. In order to see the sky one had to bend one’s neck far back, and look straight up.

  After a time wagon tracks began to appear before them.

  “We are following a caravan,” Enkidu observed. “Look, do you see the fresh droppings? What shall we do, brother? Wait here until they have gone onward?”

  “I think not,” said Gilgamesh. “This is a dead place, very stifling to the soul, and nothing in it to eat but bugs. We’ll move ahead, and overtake them, and perhaps we’ll travel with them awhi
le, if they prove friendly.”

  “As you say, brother.”

  Three days and three nights more, and then they overtook the caravan: a dozen ragged wagons, shabby and sad, some with land-sails and some drawn by gaunt and weary-looking pack animals. A dog set up a frantic barking the moment the Sumerians came into view, and the caravan halted at once. Men and a few women armed with pistols and automatic weapons jumped down, crouching in the red earth as if expecting attack.

  They were all Later Dead, Gilgamesh observed with distaste. “Come,” he said to Enkidu. “Let’s go peacefully toward them. They must think we’re scouts for a larger force coming behind us, or else they are more than uncommonly nervous.”

  Holding his hands raised high, he went forward.

  The caravan folk were slow to overcome their suspicions. Their leader, a burly, big-bellied man named van der Heyden, who had two ammunition belts slung over his middle and a weapon jutting under each arm, questioned them for a long while, asking where they had been, where they meant to go, whether they had companions to the rear. “We are only wandering huntsmen,” Gilgamesh replied, “and there are none of us but what you see.”

  “Hunters? Out here? What’s to hunt out here?”

  “We would have taken a more easterly track, but we were urged by the nature of the road into this canyon.”

  “Then Brasil’s not your destination?”

  “Hardly,” said Gilgamesh. “We wish to avoid it.”

  Van der Heyden chuckled. “Not much chance of that now. This canyon comes out just to the mainland side of Brasil. You’ve got no way of avoiding it now.”

  “What if we turn back?” Enkidu said.

  “Then you’ll find yourself where you just were. And it’s a long hungry walk to get there.” The burly man’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t look like fools, either of you. But why would anyone want to be traveling like you are in a place like this? There’s got to be more to it than that.”

  “What you see,” said Gilgamesh, “are two men who care nothing for the life of the cities, and seek only solitude—which proves harder to find in this part of the land than we had expected. We are not spies and we plan no treacheries. If you like, we’ll join you and give you whatever assistance you require until we emerge from this canyon, in return for our food and a blanket to cover us at night. If not, well, we’ll move on ahead, and make shift by ourselves.”

  Van der Heyden considered that a moment.

  “Can you fight?” he asked, at length.

  “What do you suppose?” Enkidu said, grinning down from his great height.

  “With what? Swords? Bows and arrows?”

  “We do well with those,” said Gilgamesh. “But we have mastered your weapons also. If we are not wanted, though—”

  “No,” van der Heyden said. “Come along with us. We can use a couple of fellows your size, I think.”

  “In that case,” Gilgamesh said, “you should know that it is some days since last we ate anything.”

  “So I suspected,” said van der Heyden.

  The caravan was bound for Brasil out of the Outback city of Lo-yang, bearing a cargo of goods to sell in the city ruled by Simon Magus. Van der Heyden was careful not to specify the nature of the goods, nor were there any clues apparent. Plainly, from the heavyset man’s close-mouthedness and from the uneasy way that the merchants had greeted the two Sumerians, the cargo was a precious one, and there were fears of brigandry in this area. But Gilgamesh asked no questions. His plan was only to travel with van der Heyden to the mouth of the canyon, and then to turn away, whether to north or south he did not know, in the hope of finding a route back into the unpopulated areas.

  It was slow going. The canyon was barely wide enough to let the wagons pass, and in places it seemed impossible that they would get through at all; but van der Heyden had a trick of tipping the wagons up first on the left-hand wheels, then on the right, and somehow maneuvering them around the jutting bosses of rock that blocked the way in the narrowest places. Gradually the canyon grew wider; and the wind was softer and more moist here, a sure sign that they were approaching the coast. Now the canyon walls sloped outward instead of rising sheerly, and there was some vegetation on them. And there was game to be caught. Though the caravan had provisions of its own, van der Heyden evidently had intended to supplement them with animals taken along the way, and the Sumerians earned the price of their transport by going out on hunting expeditions along the slopes.

  Generally Gilgamesh and Enkidu hunted together. But on one occasion Gilgamesh went alone, and a great error it proved to be.

  The lead wagon had thrown one of its wheels that day. It lay yawed over practically on its side, having cut a deep rut with its bare axle in the powdery red earth. Van der Heyden pounded its sides in perplexity; and then, turning toward the massive Sumerians, called out, “Here! You two, lend us a hand!”

  “We’re going out hunting,” said Gilgamesh. “Those hills up there are rich with game.”

  “Well, one of you go, then, and the other give us some help. We’ve got to lift the damned wagon, don’t you see?”

  Gilgamesh hesitated. A surge of anger ran through him. Lifting wagons out of ruts was no work for one who had once been a king; and there was good hunting waiting for him. He would have replied hotly to van der Heyden, but Enkidu, as if sensing what was about to happen, put his hand quickly to his friend’s arm and said to the other, “I’ll help you with your wagon. My brother Gilgamesh will go to seek the game.”

  “Enkidu—”

  “It’s all right, brother. I’ll put their wagon to rights, and if there’s still enough light by the time I’m done, I’ll follow your trail and join you in the hills. Go. Go, now, while the game’s still in your grasp.”

  “But—”

  “Go,” Enkidu said again.

  Gilgamesh watched, still angered, as Enkidu went to join the group straining at the wagon. Putting his shoulder to the wagon’s side, Enkidu gestured to Gilgamesh to take his leave; and after a moment, scowling, the Sumerian nodded and stalked away. It was already late in the day for hunting. Quickly he clambered up the slope of the canyon wall, clinging to the twisted, gnarled trunks of the almost leafless shrubs that sprouted here. Some white-furred creature not much larger than a goat came bounding out suddenly, looked at him in amazement, and took off in frantic leaps toward the top of the wall. Gilgamesh at once gave chase, never taking his eyes from the dazzling whiteness of the beast as he ascended. The meat would be tasty, perhaps; the hide would make a splendid cloak, beyond any doubt. Up he went, and up still farther, and through a cleft in the flank of the canyon wall, and onward, and onward, tirelessly following the flash of white.

  In the end he lost the creature entirely, to his great annoyance. But he prowled more deeply into the secondary canyon that he had come upon, thinking he might find another that was like it. That proved a hopeless quest, and he had to settle for smaller and less pleasing game. As the shadows began to deepen Gilgamesh retraced his steps, emerging from the little canyon into the main one, and starting downward then toward the place where the caravan had halted.

  The caravan was shielded from his sight by a dip in the canyon wall. He was unable to see it until he was halfway down; but what he saw then, before any of the wagons came into view, was a plume of black smoke that somehow did not seem like the smoke of a campfire. Gilgamesh raced forward to the far side of the dip, and looked over the edge.

  “Gods!” he cried.

  The wagons lay scattered and overturned on the valley floor as though they had been tossed about by the hand of the king of the demons. Some were ablaze. All had been split open and ransacked. And everywhere about them lay the merchants, weltering in their own blood. Gilgamesh saw van der Heyden lying on his back, eyes staring rigidly. There was a great wound in his chest. Others had fallen face down, or had managed to scramble halfway under one of the wagons. No one was moving.

  “Enkidu?” Gilgamesh called.

  He
let slip the animals he was carrying and ran in wild skidding strides down to the floor of the valley. At close range the scene was one of even more frightful devastation than he had thought. They were all dead here, the men, the women, the children, even the pack animals, all but one big brindle dog, Ajax by name, who ran up and down, barking furiously. And they had been slain with a ferocity and a vehemence that even battle-hardened Gilgamesh found repellent: a terrible butchery, a ghastly slaughter. The wagons had been ransacked and utterly destroyed.

  And Enkidu? Where was Enkidu?

  The sense of his absence rang in Gilgamesh’s mind like the tolling of a terrible bell.

  Frantically he searched behind this wagon and under that one, and with all his great strength he roared the name of his friend; but of Enkidu there was no sign at all, neither of his person nor of his weapons. That was puzzling. Had the attackers carried him off? So it would seem—unless Enkidu had not been here at all when the attack took place, unless he had set out into the hills in search of Gilgamesh, and somehow they had missed each other’s path when Gilgamesh had returned from the hunt—

  No. In this narrow canyon it was impossible that Enkidu would have failed to find and follow Gilgamesh’s trail. And Gilgamesh’s echoing cries—surely Enkidu would have heard those, no matter how far he had wandered—