Gates

by Edmund A. M. Batara

  My grandmother used to tell me that the souls of the dead did not look at the living straight in the eyes, a folk belief which found companionship in her certainty that the souls of the dead stayed around for forty days before they would leave this plane. Folklore or not, Henry was in my dream and his skewed smile did a lot in laying to rest my memory of his violent death.

  The waiting circle of fog was a different matter. When I turned my attention to it, fear radiated from the damned thing, though one could sense that what permeated through the mist were but wisps escaping from an infinitely powerful yet tightly controlled emanation of unimaginable horror. The terror seeped through my flesh and froze my bones. Panic rose.

  Then Henry spoke.

  “This is your dream, my friend. And I am here. But then again, not that it matters. I am just your cheerleader squad of one. But I believe that for now, there's no danger to you. You regrettably aroused the curiosity of somebody, though I fear she's only the first of many,” the professor grinned. “But as long as I get to say something, let me say you're right about that mythology thing. That's your strength – the knowledge of it. Use it.”

  Henry was going to say more, but several tendrils of mist suddenly darted forward and covered his figure. Then they disappeared, and so did the professor. Somebody must be extremely uncomfortable with what he was going to say, I thought.

  “Mortal. Bow and show obeisance,” a soft feminine voice came from the fog. It was gently spoken in an unfamiliar tongue, and the caressing syllables echoed in my mind. Yet I understood it. At that time, I put it down to dreams being places where language was usually not a barrier.

  A dream was but a reflection of our subconscious after all, according to our experts, many of whom would be dead by now. The tone was everything you wanted it to be—comforting, patient, and kind. Or a lover's erotic whispers, if you wanted to hear it that way. Yet, at that time, I noticed a second underlying tone to the voice, one of unmitigated hate, extreme cruelty, unimaginable viciousness, and incredible arrogance.

  Part of me wanted to yield to the command. Why not? That pathetic bit of me argued.

  She's undoubtedly powerful, caring, and concerned about your welfare. Probably beautiful and sexy beyond description.

  The urge was that strong. If I hadn’t felt the terrifying undercurrent in her speech, I would have fallen to my knees and bowed. Yet, the cold cruelty and contemptuous scorn I sensed held me back. Imagine yourself totally wasted and then suddenly sober. That's the picture.

  “Excuse me, Miss, but what's with the bowing? I don't think that's common nowadays,” I suddenly blurted out, my mouth getting the better of me. And it was a moronic smart-aleck response. But I really didn’t know how that happened. I should have been frightened out of my wits even though it was but a dream. It was my dream, I knew. But still…

  “Respect your betters, mortal. We sense a lot had changed in this world, but power is power in whatever world or time a person finds oneself,” came the placating explanation, still in the soft, patient voice.

  But I could sense mounting impatience and exasperation. The speaker must not be used to such delay or questions. It was a bizarre experience for me. I could hear the pleasant voice, yet at the same time, could make out and sense a different tone, full of malice and evil, behind the veil of her comforting pitch. It was like an echo but a grating and unpleasant one—higher, irritating to the ears, and definitely not friendly.

  Fuck you, I thought. It's my dream.

  “I am really sorry, Miss, but I doubt if the United States Constitution recognizes royalty. You have to make do with hello,” I replied. It was another asinine answer, and a dangerous one too, considering the entity could enter my dreams. But I guessed I was bitter and angry and didn't give a rat's butt about her demand.

  “Mortals. We have forgotten how stupidly stubborn you are. Very well. In time, you will learn.”

  We? Using the royal We? Or there's a lot of them behind that creepy mist? Who the hell am I talking to?

  “Excuse me again, Miss. But shouldn't we first introduce ourselves? You seem to know me, but I don't know you,” I asked. Politely, this time. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  “You wish to look upon power, mortal? We might make an exception this time. It had been far too long when mortal eyes had beheld power incarnate,” the entity answered with obvious amusement. But the weird echo betrayed an exhibitionist arrogance.

  The mist parted and on top of the hill, graced by a luminescent glow, sat a woman on a throne. She was beautiful. Scratch that. Perfectly beautiful.

  Gleaming alabaster skin with a roseate tinge, finely contoured face lines, enticing green eyes surrounded by just the right amount of kohl, smooth, long black hair framed by a golden circlet, and a white diaphanous gown tastefully decorated with gold trimmings. An ornate belt of gold and platinum was on her waist, and her wrists were festooned with thin gold bangles.

  The throne itself was also made of gold, and the armrests statues of lions with human heads. An enormous aura of power emanated from her. It gave off a reassuring feeling of goodness, of caring. On the surface, that was. What greatly worried me was the unadulterated malice which was the real emotion beneath the illusion.

  Lamassu. I recognized the armrest design. Representations of Sumerian or Akkadian protective deities. It meant I was in the presence of one of the rulers of the freaking Mesopotamian underworld. Or at least a ranking lieutenant. It was an impressive and humbling spectacle. At least, it was before my eyes focused on the scene before me.

  What I saw was a visual counterpart of what I was hearing. Beneath the glorious and impressive façade was a repulsive and frightening image. The majestic aspect appeared to be superimposed on another picture, a caricature of a human female seated on a large, fractured throne of skulls and bones, and enormous bat wings extending from her body. Instead of the regal posture her imagery portrayed, she sat on the throne with her legs splayed, revealing to all and sundry the thick matted hair she had on her privates.

  The hair was disheveled and adorned with a crown of yellow bone. Her arms were on two complete human skeletons grotesquely twisted to serve as armrests. Fully naked, her skin was a mottled green, pockmarked by sores oozing pus. Her small breasts discharged a whitish yellow fluid which my thoroughly disgusted mind wanted to believe was breast milk. Copious blood ran from her mouth and down her body. I evidently caught her attention while she was at dinner. Her hands had elongated thin fingers which ended in unbelievably sharp and long fingernails. Though they could be talons.

  Her legs were bone-thin and also displayed the hallmark sores of her body. I couldn't see if she had claws on them. From there, I went up to her face. Her head was bent, half-covered by repulsively matted hair and she had a dangerous scowl on her face. The eyes were similar to the monsters we encountered back at the farm, also green and slit-like. Tiny red spots indicated she also had the distinctive red iris.

  I desperately wanted to puke at the singularly abhorrent sight. Tightening my stomach muscles and swallowing back the rising bile, I focused on the ground before her, frantically trying to force my mind to forget what the eyes saw. It was then I became aware that it was more than just a dream. My physical reactions had just slapped me with that fact. Then something told me not to show that I saw what I’d just witnessed. Call it intuition or whatever, but it was that feeling you get at the back of the neck telling you to keep something to yourself.

  As I furiously tried to get my brain back to some sense of normalcy, another tidbit, this time from my studies, hit me. I suddenly caught onto who the revolting entity was; it was none other than the lethally malevolent Lamashtu, demon-goddess, evil daughter of the Sky God Anu, the eater of newborn and unborn babies, and who specialized in bringing disease, sickness, and death. A significant and dangerous figure in Mesopotamian lore.

  Unbidden, the ancient incantation against her rose in my mind. The damned thing was an answer to a test question back in college. />
  Great is the daughter of Heaven who tortures babies

  Her hand is a net, her embrace is death

  She is cruel, raging, angry, predatory

  A runner, a thief is the daughter of Heaven

  She touches the bellies of women in labor

  She pulls out the pregnant women’s baby

  The daughter of Heaven is one of the Gods, her brothers

  With no child of her own.

  Her head is a lion’s head

  Her body is a donkey’s body

  She roars like a lion

  She constantly howls like a demon-dog.

  The shocking and fearful revelation made me wish I was back talking to a fog bank.

  9

  The Smell of Roses

  The resulting fear almost overwhelmed me. I fought the visceral instinct to turn and run away as fast as possible, Her Sinister Royal Highness—be double-damned! Believe me, trying to remain where I was, seemed darned near impossible. A freakish chill wormed its unbidden way down my spine. Strangely, the air smelled of roses. Don’t ask me why.

  My knees felt weak and the rest of my body involuntarily trembled from the incredible dread and enormous effort to keep alive the façade of not knowing the terrible truth behind the fake pageantry. Fortunately, she misconstrued my visible fear as a reaction to her illusion of grandeur.

  “We are the goddess Dimme, mortal. Be grateful for our presence despite your appalling lack of respect, excusable due to incredible ignorance it may be. Your name, mortal?”

  I admit that seemingly innocent question added to my overwrought mind, pummeled already by staggering dread and alarm. From what I remembered, names were an important facet of ancient mythology and magic. Names had power.

  The Law of True Names existed from the time of the Egyptians down to the Greeks and up to the advent of Christianity. Remember the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin? The real name of the mythical creature was crucial in that story. Ulysses? He had to call himself by another name when the Cyclops asked for it, though despite his vaunted wisdom, he was stupid enough to brag about his name as he sailed away to escape. Look what happened to him. Poseidon, the father of the now-blinded Cyclops Polyphemus, now knew who to bedevil.

  Even Jewish practices and Sufism, among many surviving belief systems, maintained the tradition. Many evil rites required the true name of the victim in order to wreak death, injury, disease, or other such catastrophic outcomes. And now, the demon was asking for mine!

  Of course, I could lie and say another name. Or refuse to answer. But I also knew that doing so would be treading on dangerous ground. A falsehood could be magically detected, with dire consequences. And I knew Lamashtu was a powerful demon by herself, and she was also the daughter of another more powerful being, doubling or even tripling the risk.

  Refusal would also conceivably result in the same grievous and possibly fatal situation. Or worse, in a really evil curse, of which there existed a multitude of possibilities—being alive but rotting, the least among them. I could already see her true self was angry. My mind went into overdrive trying to save my worthless skin and soul.

  “Eirikr, your Highness,” I eventually replied. It was, to a great extent, a truthful answer. My name was derived from that ancient Norse version.

  Quite an about-face, isn’t it? From one who didn’t give a flying rat’s shit about royalty to one now using Your Highness. Put it this way—when you’re faced with a terrifyingly evil demon-goddess who you know had left her bloodstained and plague-ridden mark throughout millennia of ancient history, one wouldn’t quibble about small things like royal titles.

  I had no objections to calling her Your Prime Inter-Galactic Evilness if she wanted me to, not that she’d admit to being the demon-goddess at this stage. I'd even do it with a flourish. The pageantry she produced indicated that small detail. She obviously wanted to avoid the use of her Lamashtu name. It was more familiar and a negative one in her perception, I guessed, and she didn’t want to take the chance that it still bore highly unpleasant connotations in this day and age.

  But the name Lamashtu was Akkadian in origin, and the name she used, Dimme, was Sumerian. Myth did credit her with having seven names, not that I would like to know them all. Dimme and Lamashtu were enough for me.

  “My divine power noted a spark of strange energy in this area, and brought me to you. What are you? An ashipu? From what I have seen so far, I had thought such practitioners to be long gone. Yet, the mark of your magic is both familiar and strange. And powerful, considering your ability to tear open small rifts between this world and ours.”

  She thinks I am a mage? And I can open rifts?

  The last part of her reply stunned me. I did suspect it, being one of the possible explanations for the appearance of the creature at the gate during the firefight. But I had hoped it was a stray beast drawn by the sound of the exchange of gunfire. It was an extremely alarming and frightening realization, knowing I brought with me the ability to bring death and chaos, not only to myself but to everyone around me.

  As I thought of what to say, a sudden surge of power arrived, heralded by a mighty gust of wind heavy with the stench of filth and decay. It was not any particular odor, but rather what one’s mind and senses became aware of. The smell of roses disappeared.

  Lamashtu swiftly turned in the direction of the newcomer. I could see her face now twisted in a rictus of hate, and her form started to blur.

  Me? I began to slowly walk backward, away from whatever was happening. Fortunately, Lamashtu had already forgotten about me, which meant the new arrival was also a powerful entity. She stood up and the mist quickly returned to enshroud the hill.

  Though worried and scared, I was also starting to be angry. It was my dream! And these buggers had the gall to force themselves into it, making demands of me, and now clearly wanted to make it a battleground, judging from the reaction of the demoness.

  I was really, really pissed off, until I found I could see through the fog which covered the top of the hill. Lamashtu had her back turned to me and was now in her real persona. Her enormous wings were fully extended as she floated a few feet above the ground. The form of the demoness was already glowing with a green eldritch light. She was gathering and readying her power.

  Jen, I thought desperately. Please wake me up! There’s going to be a rough-and-ready rumble between two freaking elephants and I’m an ant caught in the middle! And the battleground’s in my ever-loving mind!

  Laughter abruptly reverberated around us. It had a mocking quality to it, and hideously grated on one’s ears. The tone had a twittering characteristic and like Lamashtu, quite high pitched. The wind rose in intensity and the stench increased. The Mesopotamian underworld didn’t have nice guys and gals.

  “You think you can escape my watch, witch?” the voice shouted derisively. “And up to your usual wiles again! Does the poor mortal know who you really are?”

  The demon-goddess replied with a massive magical blast. I could see the cloud of black energy erupting from her hands as she threw the spell at her tormentor. I still had no idea who she was attacking though my furtive retreat had stopped. I was already nearly at the foot of the mound and too close to the dark barrier enclosing us, though I guessed it was only me it held in that place.

  “You dare, weakling?” shrieked Lamashtu. “Come, Pazuzu. Let us see who is mightier!”

  A bright purple glow started to rise over the mound. I saw it rapidly expanding until it towered over everything. Then I woke up.

  Jen was shaking me awake by my left arm. She stopped when she noticed my eyes had opened. I felt strong gusts of wind buffeting us. The branches and leaves of the tree were already shaking. I looked at Jen.

  “It started a few minutes ago! I have trying to wake you up ever since!” she cried out.

  I noticed the chaotic din surrounding us increasing in intensity. A slight noxious charnel smell now became apparent. Then several trees around one to two hundred feet away from us t
oppled to the ground, adding the sound of loud crashes to the aural pandemonium.

  “We've got to get out of here!” I replied, already shouting to get myself heard above the din.

  We hurriedly clambered down and sprinted away from the growing disturbance. It looked like the two demons had decided to slug it out on the material plane instead. I knew all about Pazuzu. We’d met his minions. But that demon of wind was also the arch-nemesis of Lamashtu.

  Mesopotamian religious mythology was a curious system. It was infested by demons but some, like Pazuzu, were deemed not wholly evil in the sense that they fought other demons—like Lamashtu—as shown by the ongoing imbroglio. It was, at its core, a protection belief based on siccing an evil demon on another. No way was I going to go down that path, especially as I remembered the mantra dealing with Pazuzu found in archaeological sites: