by Brian Godawa
She entered the temple of Shamash and stomped her way to the rooftop where she found Ninsun engaged in offerings to Shamash.
“Where is he, Cow?!” she yelled.
Ninsun looked at her fearfully. Ishtar sensed a presence and turned to see the quiet muscular figure of Ninurta standing in the shadow of the pillars. And in that instant, she knew Gilgamesh was gone. He had left the city. But where and why?
“I thought I smelled excrement,” said Ishtar. “Ninurta, you really must stop hiding in the shadows like a cockroach. Unless of course — you want to be a cockroach, in which case I am sure my sorcerers could help you out with some incantations and magic potions.”
Ninurta stepped out silently into the light. He strode toward Ishtar.
So this was it. He was finally going to challenge her in a duel of power. Ishtar tightened with readiness and a slight grin. This upstart may be a mighty warrior, but he had nowhere near the experience of Ishtar. She had cut through a myriad of warriors and tread through oceans of blood to get to her position as the fiery goddess of war. She had an uncontrollable temper, but when it came to battle, she was an invincible champion of technique, precision, and skill. In the assembly of the gods, she was uncontested.
Just try me scrapper, she thought. Give me the excuse.
But Ninurta was not challenging her. He walked right past her, their eyes and clenched teeth following each other like serpents ready to strike. He walked up to and stood beside Ninsun.
I will have my day, blowhard, mused Ninurta. And then you will know wrath. But my day is not yet here.
“I see,” said Ishtar. “The calf of Uruk is gone on a secret mission, so guard the cow.”
Ninurta did not speak. His power was his silence. Words were wasted on enemies. Silence maintained advantage.
Instead, Ninsun responded, “Gilgamesh is on a clandestine quest of utmost importance and secrecy. He will reveal his undertaking and purpose upon his return.”
“How formal and proper of you,” hissed Ishtar. But then she stopped and brightened with realization.
“You told him, did you not?” said Ishtar.
Ninsun would not say. But she did not have to. This little imposter outwitted her and told Gilgamesh before Ishtar could force her.
“You did. You told Gilgamesh about his lineage.”
Ninsun gave a nervous glance at Ninurta who remained as inexpressive as a stone statue.
Ishtar added slyly, “And about your façade of deity?”
Ninsun had already been so completely humiliated by Ishtar in her own city and temple that this was mere redundancy.
Ishtar announced with sarcastic melodrama, “And now he has gone on a journey to seek the Land of the Living in search of his ancestry and eternal life.” It was too easy for her to figure that one out.
Ishtar approached Ninsun. Her extravagant robe dragged on the floor giving her the appearance of floating in the air.
Ninurta placed his hand on his sword hilt.
“Stay your nervous hand and sweaty loins, guard dog,” said Ishtar. “I am not in the mood.”
But Ninurta stepped closer, his face an impenetrable wall of stone, his sword arm a steel trap ready to spring.
Ishtar leaned close enough to whisper to Ninsun with a triumphant grin. “Your orphan amputee is in for a big surprise.”
Ninsun did not understand what Ishtar meant. What kind of surprise? Was it all a lie? Was he walking into a trap? But Ninsun was afraid to betray her fear.
She tried to act casual in her concern, “What are you talking about, ‘surprise’?”
Ishtar stepped back and laughed. “Why do you not ask your dog?” Ninsun looked to Ninurta. He was not going to speak.
Ishtar leaned back in. Ninurta followed with readiness. Ishtar hissed, “You are safe now, Lady Cow. But I have no more use for you. And the day will come when you will no longer be protected, and I will gut you.”
Ninsun gulped and felt nauseous.
Ishtar thought for a moment and added with a chuckle, “With orgasmic pleasure.”
She turned and walked away with the swagger of a harlot, her robe train following behind her like a long flowing cape. At the entrance pillar, she stopped for one glance back at Ninurta and whispered too softly to hear, “You and I will dance later, big boy.”
But with their preternatural hearing, the gods could pick out the softest of sounds at a great distance. Ishtar’s whisper did not go unheard.
Chapter 37
Gilgamesh had left before the dawn with only a dirk in his belt and the clothes on his back. He was on a long perilous journey, but was going to need all his strength and the lightest load he could carry for the feat before him. It was the mightiest of all his accomplishments because it was a contest with his largest nemesis yet. He was going to outrun the sun.
Ninsun had told him of the legends of Dilmun, the Land of the Living, that resided where the sun rises at the mouth of the rivers. The mouth of the rivers in Sumer was the Southern Sea that drank the Tigris and Euphrates and opened up into seas that circled the earth. The poetic reference to the sun rising was a way of saying a place of dawning glory faraway.
It was a magical island considered an abode of the blessed, where Noah ben Lamech and his wife had retreated to live out their immortality awarded by the gods. It was described as an Edenic paradise. Some thought it was the original Eden.
Gilgamesh had read of this Land of the Living where the sweet waters came up and mixed with the bitter waters of the ocean. It was written that in Dilmun, “the croak of the raven was not heard, the bird of death did not utter the cry of death, the lion did not devour, the wolf did not rend the lamb, the dove did not mourn, there was no widow, no sickness, no old age, no lamentation.”
Gilgamesh had wondered if this was the Garden of Edin of Sumerian myth, where the gods bestowed eternal life to all who lived there. He could not know that the original Eden had been completely covered over in lava up in the Ararat mountain range. He was ready to sacrifice everything to find his great grandfather and obtain the immortality that alone could quench his thirst.
Ninsun had explained that the only way to find Noah was to find his boatman Urshanabi who could take him to Noah across the Waters of Death. But Urshanabi could only be found by traversing “the Path of the Sun,” a long underground passageway beneath the earth that began at the twin mountain peaks of Mashu, and passed through a pitch black subterranean tunnel of Sheol. The dead could not escape Sheol, but if a living one like Gilgamesh could follow the pathway without wavering to the right or to the left, and he could do so before the sun could complete one revolution around the earth, he would safely arrive near the location of Urshanabi’s boat crossing.
Gilgamesh chuckled to himself. He remembered how Sinleqiunninni, his scholar sage and librarian, had gone off on another long jackal trail when describing to him the fabled Path of the Sun. “Actually,” the scholar had said, using one of his trademark sentence openers that was an indication he was about to correct someone again, “the Path of the Sun is not technically the real path of Shamash under the earth. You see, commoners in their ignorance lack nuance in their reasoning and simply think that it is the ‘literal’ path of the sun. But as a wisdom sage, I can tell you that the assured results of elite scholarship know that the sun travels around the solid firmament above and sets in the West, where it circles beneath the earth through its Underworld tunnel Eastward, where it rises behind the far mountains at the edge of the world. But the Path of the Sun that you are taking begins at the twin peaks of Mount Mashu within traveling distance to the east of Uruk, not the far edge of the world. Secondly, Mount Mashu is said to guard the rising of the sun, but in point of fact, if you begin your run where the sun rises, then you will be running against the sun’s circuit toward the west and will only have twelve hours before the sun sets and meets you in the beginning of its tunnel beneath the earth. Additionally, you are traveling westward which is in the opposite direction of the magica
l land of Dilmun which lies eastward in the South Sea. Therefore the fact that you have twenty-four hours to run your course and the actual tunnel does not match the true path of the sun, obviously implies that ‘Path of the Sun’ is a poetic metaphor that is lost on uneducated and ignorant literalists who…”
“Sinleqi!” interrupted Gilgamesh with impatience, “Shut up, will you? I got the point.”
Sinleqiunninni stopped with a gasp. Gilgamesh wondered if the scholar had even taken a breath during that entire monologue.
Gilgamesh summarized, “I am passing through a pitch black tunnel in Sheol, and I have twenty-four hours to make it or else.”
Gilgamesh realized he was not done. “Which leads to my next question. And please try to answer only what I ask in as few words as possible.”
“Yes, my lord,” replied Sinleqiunninni.
“What happens if I do not make it?” asked Gilgamesh. “Will the shades attack me? Just ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”
“But my lord,” said the scholar.
“Just yes or no,” insisted the king.
“Yes and no,” said Sinleqiunninni.
Gilgamesh sighed with a frustrated roll of his eyes.
Sinleqiunninni blurted as quickly as he could, “No, they will not attack you if you do not stray into their crevices at the tunnel’s edges. Yes, they will eat you if you do.”
Gilgamesh stopped and gave his scholar a smile.
“See, now that was not too hard was it? Well done, scholar.”
“However,” Sinleqiunninni tried to add.
“Ah ah ah ah ah,” said Gilgamesh with his finger in the air to stop him.
The scholar obeyed and gulped his words.
And Gilgamesh gulped at how hard his task was going to be without getting eaten alive.
• • • • •
By the time Gilgamesh made it to Mount Mashu, he discovered the one last thing he should have let his long-winded scholar tell him: The gateway to the Path of the Sun was guarded by Scorpion people.
Chapter 38
Gilgamesh was awakened by the rustling of some brush. He had fallen asleep inside the cave entrance that he found after running many leagues to Mount Mashu without stopping to rest. He was practicing for his twelve double hour run through the Underworld. He had managed to kill a couple of lions with the intent of carrying some food with him for the grueling journey ahead.
He grasped his dagger and slid into the shadow of a crevice in the rock wall. He heard the scraping of clawed feet approaching on the rocks, and with it, a male and a female voice.
They were bickering.
The male voice was gruff and spoke with a rural accent like he had not been in the city — ever. The female voice was raspy and badgering.
“Oh, for Enlil’s sake, will you please just simmer down some?” said the male voice.
“Simmer down? You do not tell me to simmer down,” said the female voice. “I ask you to do one little thing, go and get us some food, and you cannot even do that without me leaving our post to help you do your job!”
“Nag, nag, nag,” complained the male voice. “Is that all you can do?”
“Well if you did your job, I would not have to nag,” nagged the female voice. “And now all we have is this mangy dog that is not fit for an appetizer.”
Gilgamesh saw the bickering couple enter the cave. He almost gasped with horror. They were Scorpion people. Abominable hybrid beings that he had heard of in fables of dark antediluvian days, but had never actually seen. They had the lower bodies of scorpions with stinger tails and eight arachnid legs, and the upper bodies of humans, male and female. But where their hands would be on their arms were scorpion claws, large powerful pincers.
He had heard that before the Flood, the gods had experimented with dark occultic arts in an attempt to interbreed nature with itself. To unite opposing poles of being. They had created soldiers with canine and avian heads, Scorpion people and other crossbred creatures. He did not know just exactly what was the point behind it all and whether this had something to do with the arrival of the Deluge of judgment. Had the gods reinstituted their miscegenation plans or were these just rejects from a dying line of those ancestors?
The female dragged a diseased dog carcass by the hind leg and plopped it against the wall. It must have been dead for days and was rotting with maggots and flies all about it. Gilgamesh felt vomit rise in his throat. These mongrel monstrosities of miscegenation were the sentinels of the Path of the Sun.
“Now do I have to also gut it and clean it for you or can you at least do that simple task?” she asked with contempt.
The Scorpion man rolled his eyes, sighed and took the dog by the throat, thrusting his other claw into the belly to clip through it like a pair of scissors. Its rotting guts poured out on the floor. The Scorpion Man licked his claw and crunched a few maggots.
Gilgamesh gathered his wits and stepped out into the light of the fire the Scorpion Woman had just started.
The Scorpion Man saw him first and just stared at him. At nine feet tall, Gilgamesh was a good bit taller than their approximate height of about six feet. And Gilgamesh was a Gibbor warrior, a mighty king who had conquered the Rephaim Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven.
But who knew what these occultic chimeras were capable of? Maybe they had magic powers from the gods. After all, the gods would not post sentries who were not capable of defending their turf. Their grumpy personalities must have been a disarming façade for some very vicious creatures ready to sting and claw to death their adversaries.
Then again, they could not hunt well enough to find their own food.
The Scorpion Woman turned to see the Scorpion Man standing frozen in position. She blurted out, “Will you please stop piddling around like a statue and get your…”
She stopped when she saw Gilgamesh standing with hand on his dagger. She backed up a couple of steps in shock.
Gilgamesh would not allow them time to strategize. He pronounced, “I am King Gilgamesh, Scion of Uruk, Wild Bull on the Rampage, slayer of Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven, the mighty king who has no equal.”
The Scorpion Man finally spoke, “That is one mighty long list of epithets. Do you have a shorter name that is easier to remember?”
“For Enlil’s sake, Girtablu,” barked the Scorpion Woman, “It is King Gilgamesh.”
Girtablu smiled as recognition slowly crept over his expression, and said, “We know you. He whose body is flesh of the gods is our visitor.”
The woman, Sinnista, corrected him, “Only two thirds of him is god. A third of him is human.”
Gilgamesh, feeling a bit for the chastised of his gender, decided to help out Girtablu, “That is just a myth. I am really a half-breed. Like you are.”
Girtablu and Sinnista grew cold. A pall of tension descended upon the cave.
“We would appreciate it,” said Sinnista, “if you would restrain from such derogatory comments about ‘half-breeds.’ It is offensive and its kindism.”
“Kindism?” asked Gilgamesh.
Girtablu jumped in to help clarify, “It is the human tendency to judge animal beings by their created ‘kind’ and then to place them on a hierarchy of superiority with man being on the top, of course, and lowly scorpions being inferior or of lesser value. It is used to justify oppression and the exploitation of the ‘other.’”
“But I was not inferring such a value distinction,” said Gilgamesh. “I am a mixture of kinds myself.”
“That is just what a Kindist says,” argued Sinnista. “I will bet some of your best friends are also half-breeds too, are they not?” she added sarcastically.
Now I know why the gods appointed these two as guards of the Path of the Sun, thought Gilgamesh. They will quarrel anyone to death who tries to get past them. But at least he knew now that his life was not in danger with these maladjusted nitpickers.
“Never mind,” remarked Gilgamesh. “I wanted to offer you the lions I captured and cleaned.”
He s
tepped over to the fire and took a burning log for light. He moved just a few feet back into the cave to show two large lions hanging and drying out over the rocks.
Gilgamesh added, “I ate some of their meat already, but you can have the rest of them for yourselves.”
Girtablu glanced at Gilgamesh and smiled as if to say, “You would do that for us?”
Sinnista piped up, “See, Girt? He was able to capture two lions and he only had a dagger. Look at what you could achieve if you only applied yourself.”
Girtablu rolled his eyes for Gilgamesh to see and mimicked her mouth gestures to him like a chicken clucking without the noise. Gilgamesh smiled.
“So what is your journey?” asked Girtablu.
“I seek Urshanabi, the boatman of Noah ben Lamech,” answered Gilgamesh. “I am told he is at the end of the tunnel of the Path of the Sun.”
“You want to travel the Path of the Sun?” exclaimed Girtablu.
“It has never been done before,” added Sinnista.
“There is a first for everything,” said Gilgamesh.
“But you only have twelve hours to make it to the other side,” said Girtablu.
“I thought it was twelve double hours,” said Gilgamesh. “That is what the legends say.”
“Well the legends are wrong,” said Girtablu. “It only takes the sun twelve hours to traverse the sky and enter its channel beneath the earth. You can see it with your own eyes. Or do you cling to blind faith in your legends against the observable facts?”
Gilgamesh’s heart dropped. Now he only had half the time he thought he would have to traverse the tunnel. It seemed to just keep getting worse.
