by Brian Godawa
Ninurta would not argue with him. He said, “I will be back before dawn.”
He gathered his bow, sword, mace, and javelin and jumped out the window down to the earth fifty feet below.
Gilgamesh wondered if he had gotten in over his head with this monster. Ishtar was intemperate and volatile, histrionic and emotionally unstable. But this one had a different kind of frightfulness about him. He was a cold and silent killer. No emotional display. Like a heartless crocodile in the water that suddenly snaps with jaws of iron, or a cobra that stands swaying until it strikes with death. In some ways that was more blood curdling to him.
He went to the window to look out into the night, hoping to see Ninurta’s shadow at play under the moonlight. But he was already long gone.
Then Gilgamesh’s blood ran cold. He turned to see Ishtar standing by his bed, her eyes watching him like a snake. But this was a charmed snake. All her drunkenness was gone, her impatience soothed, her sensuality heightened. She seemed to move like a wisp of undulating smoke. She wore exotic makeup and her head hosted a most beautiful headdress of gems and feathers.
Gilgamesh was entranced with her. The thought occurred to him that she might be using enchantment, but that left his head as quickly as it had entered. He found himself aroused.
She removed her robe to reveal lingerie of satin, leather, and lace. And she was not without heels. Ah, the high heels that gave the female figure such elegance when moving.
And when she spoke, it was not her usual terse and condescending voice. Gone was the impatience and spite, and in their place was soothing sensuality and libido.
So she really did live up to her name, thought Gilgamesh. And he found his deepest desires start to surface.
“Gilgamesh, I am sorry for my — lack of self-control — this evening,” said Ishtar. “I was entirely inappropriate. It was your night of celebration and I stole it with my impertinent jealousy. Please forgive me.”
Gilgamesh said nothing. He stared.
Ishtar gave a seductive little smile and writhed closer to him. But not too close. She was unsure of his willingness. She had to woo him.
“I will not lie to you,” she said. “I am the goddess of war and sometimes that means I am ridiculously excessive in my outbursts. I will not deny that. But I am also the goddess of sex, and that includes ridiculously excessive eroticism.”
She shimmied just a little closer, so he could see her better. All his senses were attuned to her. He did not trust her of course, but he could not deny his attraction. He could not deny her raw sexuality.
She whispered amorously, “Gilgamesh, you are a giant with a giant’s hunger. You are more than man. You are part god. I could see when I first met you that you had the needs of a god. I know you are restless and I know your passion is barely satisfied with the most lascivious extremes that the temple hierodules can come up with.”
She was right. He could not deny it. She was a treacherous megalomaniac, but she was a goddess. And she knew his unsettled soul with pinpoint perfection.
She continued her breathless whisper, “You are not like other men. You are a king, and a god. Your appetite is insatiable. It can only be fulfilled by a god. I am the goddess who can fulfill your desires. I can satisfy your hunger and quench your soul.”
He believed her. He absolutely believed her. She had all the danger of a den of cobras, but she was not lying to him in this moment. His pulse increased. His breath shortened. She smiled. She could feel his senses heightened.
“I am not here to seduce you, Gilgamesh.” The comment jolted him out of his fog. “You are far too great a man for that. No, I am here to make a rational offer of much more consequence than one night of pure ecstasy.”
Gilgamesh came fully back to his senses. He glanced out the window into the night, wondering when his protector would return.
“A covenant if you will,” she said.
“This is the most reasonable you have sounded yet,” said Gilgamesh.
“Oh, everything I do has a reason,” she said smiling.
Indeed. She was the most calculating creature he had ever met. More calculating than even him. Well, maybe not. But close.
“What is your offer?” he said.
“Marriage,” she said. “I offer sacred marriage between us.”
The surprise threw him. He had not anticipated this. He did not know what to say.
“I will not lie to you, Gilgamesh, it is an arrangement for me to get what I want but also for you to get what you want. This is not about love. This is a fair and even exchange for mutual benefit.”
“I just have to let you in on the plan of the gods,” he said, uncovering her true desire. There was no way in Sheol he was going to risk his life for that.
She responded with vulnerability, “It is no secret that I am not well liked in the assembly.”
He gave a look that said that was the understatement of the millennium.
“But I know the pantheon, because I was its original archon,” she said.
He looked surprised at her. He knew she must have been a leader, but the original? That changed things.
She continued, “Along with another archon, who is at this time, shall we say, ‘indisposed.’”
Anu was indisposed all right. Deep in the heart of the earth somewhere in chains until judgment day.
“The original plan was mine,” she said. “To mate with human women and breed our offspring the Nephilim as a divine human hybrid that would exist in two planes at once. You are one of them. You are a Naphil.
He could not believe it. “I am a giant, the offspring of a goddess, but were not these ‘Nephilim’ wiped out in the Flood?”
She said, “Yes, but not entirely. You are one that carries their blood in your veins. You are in the lineage of the seed of the Serpent.”
“Nephilim had twelve fingers and twelve toes. I have ten each,” he said.
“Look at your hand, Gilgamesh,” she said. “Do you see the scars where the sixth digit would be? Your mother cut them off when you were born.”
Gilgamesh felt sweat beading on his skin. She was right. He had scars on both his hands and his feet where a sixth digit would be. He wondered about that as a child, but Ninsun always said it was just a special birthmark of his deity.
She said, “I know that the pantheon sees in you a great and mighty leader to help them in their plan. I know because I see it too. We are trying to unite heaven and earth.”
He would not respond to her. He was bound by oath not to.
She said, “They have offered you immortality if you unite with them to accomplish their purposes.”
She was right. She was completely right. This was no scam of trickery on her part. She could figure out most of their plans. But not everything. She did not know everything.
She continued, “I just want to be in on the plan. And if I marry you, I will be. I do not hide that intent. But if you marry me, in addition to your bequeathed immortality, I will fulfill my part by satisfying your Nephilim appetite. There will be no ‘love,’ and no emotion. It will be purely and simply animal sexuality to heights you have only dreamed of. You will be my ‘wild bull’ and I will never let you go.”
She waited only a moment, then continued, “Imagine the power we could attain together that we cannot achieve apart.”
“But I already have a deal with Enlil and the pantheon,” he said.
“Do not be foolish, Gilgamesh” she said with unusual calm and empathy. “Do you really think that once Enlil has what he wants that the gods will not discard you?”
She was right again. Betrayers could sniff out other betrayers as easily as he could spot royalty in a crowd.
“With me as your queen,” she said, “they cannot dispense with you. And I need you as much as you need me to stay inside the plan. Alone, we are at the mercy of the pantheon. Together, we are a force to be reckoned with.”
“And what of Ninurta?” he asked.
“Ah, Ninurta,” she sa
ng. “He protects you now. But later, what will protect you from him?” She paused to let it sink in. “I can. And I would be bound by a covenant to you. He would not be.”
She knew the pantheon and its protocol better than anyone. If he married into the godhead, then he would be more protected than he would be in his current status as an instrument of the gods. Marriage would afford him rights. Rights that might very well protect him from the capricious will of these gods.
“Come, Gilgamesh,” she said, breaking his concentration, “be my bridegroom and I, your bride. You will ride a chariot of gold and the world will bow down before you — kings, nobles, and princes.”
This made sense on every level to him. It was a perfect balance of interests. Protection of the one from the many. An uneasy alliance, but the only one that kept at bay the worst that could be done to him.
The only problem was that the offer was being made by Ishtar.
He turned to her and said, “If I take your hand in marriage, will I be treated with the enduring affection of your other lovers?”
She had not anticipated this. He had blindsided her.
He continued, “Where is Dumuzi now? You fell in love with the shepherd, the keeper of herds. Yet you made him drink the muddy water and made him a substitute for you in Sheol. Now perpetual weeping has been ordained for the mother of Dumuzi, for your ‘Tammuz.’”
Ishtar stiffened. He was accusing her of betrayal and she could not deny it. It was like a dagger inside her belly. And then he turned the knife.
“And what of Ishullanu, my gardener?” said Gilgamesh. “You snuggled up to him and tasted his vitality. Then you planted him in his own garden.”
She could not deny it. This Gilgamesh was cunning. He added just enough poetic flair to his words to avoid outright hostility. In a way, it was a sharper blade with which he was cutting her. She felt her bile rising up within her. This little cockroach.
Gilgamesh finished twisting the knife, “It would not be wise for me to embrace your offer, Queen of Heaven, as I would not wish to accept the consequences of those who are unlucky enough to have garnered the intimate attention of the goddess of war.”
Ishtar started to tremble with anger as they slowly circled one another. “You ungrateful maggot. You dare question my integrity from my actions with a couple of worthless plebeians?”
Now his back was to the window. The moon was shining in her eyes. She stepped closer and stopped when she saw the large silhouette of a mighty being rise behind him in the window sill. It was Ninurta returned. He stood behind Gilgamesh, pumped up and ready for war. In her focus of rising anger, her attention had been distracted from sensing the approach of the storm god. She had let her emotions get the better of her, and now he was here, and she was not ready. This was not the time.
Ishtar hissed to Gilgamesh, “You have insulted me and slandered my name. And now you hide behind this — muscle-brained boor?”
Ninurta was not offended by the insult. He cared nothing for words. He respected only power.
She stared at Ninurta. Two mighty gods ready to spring like lions on one another. But it was not going to happen tonight.
Ishtar said, “Remember, Gilgamesh, Ninurta protects you for the pantheon. But who will protect you from the pantheon?”
She slipped out the door and vanished.
Gilgamesh sighed for having barely dodged a death blow. “Next time do not take such a long workout, will you?”
Chapter 29
The next morning, Gilgamesh awoke to the news that Ishtar was gone. She had left in the night for the desert, after killing half a dozen hierodules and male cult prostitutes in an orgy of violence.
He figured that she was so enraged at his rejection of her offer that she lashed out at her pleasure-givers and took off into the desert to cool off. Or maybe she was traveling to Mount Hermon to attempt to worm her way back into their good graces. Or maybe she was engaged in diabolical plans of revenge. He had better stay close to Ninurta just in case.
But Gilgamesh was not easily intimidated, and he was not above asserting his authority as king, even to a goddess. He detested the unsightly eyesore of that mammoth tree in the middle of Eanna, and he suspected it was like a weed of her own growing roots of manipulation. It was time to address this aggravating blight on the city of Uruk — his city.
He grabbed his huge axe that was crafted for his journey to the Great Cedar Forest and went to gather Enkidu.
When they arrived at the temple complex, Ninurta stood sentry at the gates while Gilgamesh and Enkidu entered the complex and found their way to the immense Huluppu tree.
It was already five hundred feet high and seventy feet round, its tangled roots clutching the ground like a reptilian claw.
Gilgamesh surveyed the surrounding buildings and open areas of the city to determine which way they should lay the huge tree to the ground. They heard the caw of the mighty Anzu thunderbird in the sky and saw it launch from a nest high above and fly off into the sun. It must have sensed what was about to happen.
“Enkidu,” said Gilgamesh, “let us chop some wood.”
They raised their axes high. But before they could swing them, they were interrupted by the haunting sound of a female voice behind them, “Mighty Gilgamesh!”
They turned to see a raven-haired woman in a translucent flowing robe and a wreath of flowers on her strikingly long hair. Her face was milky pale and almost seemed as translucent as her gown, which drew the eyes of both men to her voluptuous curves and titillating peeks of her sexuality. When she spoke, she sounded as if she was singing, or at least that was the effect on these men.
“I am Lilith, and I live in the folds of this mighty Huluppu tree.”
The men glanced at one another curiously.
“It is the Great Goddess Earth Mother, the Tree of Life. She is the link between heaven and earth. Why would you seek to murder her?”
“Murder?” said Gilgamesh. “It looks like just a tree to me, not a person.”
“Ah, but that is where you are wrong, O king. The mystery of life flows through her sap. Her branches bear the fruit of love, and her roots are the very nourishment of the soil around you.”
Enkidu wisecracked, “I think if you were to ask the soil, it might disagree with you, and consider itself a victim of depletion.”
Gilgamesh looked at the ground surrounding the tree. Enkidu was right. It was cracked dry and completely void of all vitality and vegetation. The tree was sucking the life out of the soil, not nourishing it. If given more time, it would no doubt suck the life out of all of Uruk and expand to the cities nearby, Eridu, Ur and the others.
Lilith drew closer. Her curves and crevices becoming more distracting to the men.
Her voice became tinged with desperation. “Does Ishtar know what you are doing? Does she approve?” she said.
“I am king of Uruk,” said Gilgamesh. “I built this temple, I rule the four quarters, and I do not approve of this tree.”
Lilith said, “Do you build your kingdom on the exploitation and degradation of your environment?”
“I have been accused of worse,” he responded.
At that moment, Enkidu could swear he felt the ground move slightly below his feet. He gripped his axe tightly.
“You leave me no choice but to call up the earth to fight back and protect itself,” she said.
“The earth is unruly enough,” said Gilgamesh. “It is mankind that has harnessed her and tended her to bring order out of the chaos.”
Lilith spoke, but did not address what Gilgamesh said. She simply stated, “Ningishzida, arise.”
Both Gilgamesh and Enkidu felt the earth move again. There was something burrowing through the dirt beneath their feet, and it no doubt was this ‘Ningishzida’ that Lilith called forth.
Enkidu spotted the moving mound, and with speedy reaction brought his axe down on the moving pile, burying it deep into the earth with an explosion of dirt. When he jerked his axe back out, a gush of blood
spurted out of the ground. Whatever that Ningishzida was crawling beneath their feet, it was not going to arise to do anything.
Gilgamesh said to Enkidu, “She is a demoness. Let us get this done.”
As a Naphil with a sensitive connection to the spiritual world, Gilgamesh could sense when he was in the presence of a spirit being.
They turned to continue their chopping, only to see two young children standing in their way, hugging the tree behind their backs. They were both feminine, but one of them seemed to Gilgamesh like a boy dressed up as a girl.
“You would murder my little girls, Lili and Lilu, as well?” cried Lilith. “What kind of monster are you?”
Gilgamesh threw a glance toward Enkidu and said, “They are demons too.” And they both swung their axes at the children, who seemed to dissolve into the tree as the blades buried in deep.
A scream penetrated the air that reminded Enkidu of the screams they heard in the Great Cedar Forest, only this one was more evil sounding. Like they had just struck a dragon.
Then they noticed that the bark of the tree started to writhe and twist like a living thing. They looked closer and noticed that the tree appeared to be made from the intertwining bodies of human beings that were all in torturous pain. It was like the tree was an imprisonment of the damned.
Another good reason to cut it down.
Gilgamesh and Enkidu continued their hacking away at the giant organism of torture for over an hour, until it finally began to creak and lean.
They stood back, and Enkidu shouted his signature, “HO, HURRAH!”
The mammoth timber fell and landed on a significant portion of Ishtar’s remodeled temple, crushing it to smithereens, exactly as Gilgamesh had planned.
“Whoops,” said Gilgamesh. “I guess Ishtar has some more work to keep her busy.” They both smiled.
Gilgamesh knew the world did not see the last of this damnable abomination. He had heard of the Huluppu tree from before the Deluge, and knew that its seed survived the waters and would seek to grow somewhere as long as there was a Mother Earth Goddess to worship. This demoness would never stop trying to rise up and take power. The world was just not ready for such a deity yet.
