"Noooooobody.” Its voice was rough and metallic, like nothing I had ever heard before. It reared up on its four hind legs, waving its front pair in the air. “Waaaaaaants.” I smashed a stone against one of those hind legs, snapping it off at the joint. Untroubled, it snatched up Silili with its forelegs. “Yoooooouuuuu!"
Then the monstrosity disappeared into the forest.
It had all happened too quickly. For the merest instant I was still, stunned, unable to move. And in that instant, faster than quicksilver, the beetle sped through the trees so nimbly that it was gone before I could react. Leaving behind it nothing but Silili's rapidly dwindling scream.
"Silili!” I cried after her. “Come back! Silili!"
Which is how, fool that I was, I lost her name.
Afterward, however, I discovered that the limb I had torn from the beetle was that same one that held the creature's mouth. “Where is she?” I demanded. “Where has she been taken to?"
"Ur,” it said. “Dum.” A long silence. “Heim."
* * * *
I ran back to Whitemarsh. There was an enormous copper disk, as tall as I was, leaning against the side of the redsmith's forge. I seized a hammer and began slamming on it to raise a great din and bring out everyone within earshot. They say that this was the first alarm that was ever sounded, but what did I care for that?
All the village came running up. Several of the First—Ninsun, Humbaba, two or three others—were among them.
I flung down the hammer.
"Girl!” I cried. Then, shaking my head, “Not girl—woman!” I had questioned the beetle-limb most of the way back to Whitemarsh before concluding that I would learn nothing useful from it and throwing it away in disgust. The interrogation had been a mistake, however, for it half-drained me of language. Now, because I had lost the word lover, I slapped my chest. “Mine.” And, howling, “Gone, gone, gone!"
A gabble of voices, questions, outraged cries rose up from the crowd. But Ninsun slammed her hands together and silenced them all with a glare. Then she folded herself down and patted the ground beside her.
"Sit,” she said to me. “Tell."
It took time and labor, but I eventually made myself understood.
"When did this begin?” Ninsun asked and, when everybody began talking at once, “You first,” she said, pointing. “Then you. Then you.” The story that she eventually stitched together was clumsily told, but the old woman nodded and clucked and probed until it had all been brought to light. At last she sighed and said, “The Igigi have come, then."
"What are the Igigi?” Mylitta asked. My body had caught up with the horror of Silili's loss by then. I was heavy with grief and speechless with despair.
"'Igigi’ is just a name we gave to them so we could talk about them."
"Yes, but what are they?” Mylitta insisted.
"There are not the words to describe the Igigi."
A frustrated growl rose up from the assembled young. I noticed the First scowling at each other when this happened.
"It is the Igigi,” Ninsun said, “who ruled over us in Urdumheim. Surely I have told you about them before?"
Some of us nodded. Others shook their heads.
"The Igigi are logophages.” Ninsun regarded us keenly from under those bushy eyebrows of hers. “Nimrod put much of his power into words, and they make us strong. The Igigi feed upon words in order to deny us that strength. Thus they gain power over us."
"Girl-woman-mine,” I reminded her. I flung an arm out toward the forest and then drew it back to me. “Woman-to-me. Woman-to-me!"
"Enmul,” Ninsun said. A boy who was known to all for his speed and endurance stepped forward. “Run to the top of Ararat. Bring Nimrod here."
* * * *
King Nimrod came down from the mountain like a storm cloud in his fury. His hair and robes lashed about him, as if in a mighty wind, and sparks shot out from his beard. “You should have told me this long ago,” he said to me, glowering, when Ninsun had told him all. “Fool! What did you think language is for?"
Humbly kneeling before him, I said, “Girl-woman-mine.” Then I slammed my heart three times to show that I hurt. “Lost-fetch-again!"
With a roar, the king knocked me flat with his enormous fist. When I stood up, he struck me down again. When I stretched out a hand in supplication he kicked me. Finally, when I could not move, Ninsun snapped an order and I was lifted up by the arms and carried away. Radjni and Mammetum laid me down in the shade of a tree, cleaning my wounds and applying mint leaves and mustards to my bruises.
Miserably, I watched as King Nimrod sent runners to every village and outlying house, to gather the People together. Already the First were gathering (they did not need to be sent for), and it was not long before there was such an assembly as had never gathered before nor has since, nor ever will again: all the People in the world.
King Nimrod then spoke: “Oh ye of little faith! I sang high the mountain so that it might be a fortress and protection for the People in times of peril. When I was done, Ararat was to tower so high it would touch the sky, where no demon would dare go. Then would we have made our homes there and been safe forever.
"Alas, our enemies have arrived before my work was done. The slopes of Ararat will slow but not stop them. So before their armies converge upon us, we must prepare to defend ourselves."
All this I narrate as things I have heard and know to be true. Yet, even though I was there, Nimrod's speech was incomprehensible to me. This is what I actually heard:
* * * *
faith! mountain
fortress protection Ararat
tower demon
safe forever.
Alas enemies Ararat
armies converge
* * * *
After a hurried consultation among the First, Shaleb the Scribe began sketching plans for a defense. With a gesture, he stripped the land before him of vegetation. Enkidu handed him a staff and he drew a circle: “Ararat,” he said. Along its flanks, he drew three nested semicircles: “Curtain wall. Barbican. Palisades.” Squiggly lines made a river. He drew a line across it: “Dam.” Other lines represented streams. He reshaped them: “Channels."
So it began. At King Nimrod's orders, we cut down trees and built palisades. We dug trenches, redirected streams, created lakes. Foodstuffs were brought in and locked away in warehouses we built for that purpose. Weapons were forged. All this was done under direction of the First. Those of the second generation who'd had the least exposure to the Igigi were made overseers and supervisors, in proportion to their ability to understand directions. Those who could follow only the simplest orders were made runners and carriers. Down at the very bottom of the social order were those such as I who could not be trusted to comprehend the plainest commands and so were used as brute labor, hauling logs or lugging stones, driven to obedience by kicks, cuffs, and curses.
I will not dwell upon my misery, for all that it was compounded by being so richly deserved. Suffice it to say, I suffered.
Then one day a pillar of smoke appeared on the horizon. We put down our shovels and axes—those who were trusted with tools—and as we did so a second pillar arose, and then a third, and a fourth, and a hundredth, until we could no longer count them all. Dark they rose up and wide they spread, until they merged and turned the sky black.
Inanna, who was best-liked of all the First, passed through the camp, handing out strips of cotton cloth. So quick was she that her feet never once touched the earth, and to each one she met she said, “The Igigi are burning the forests. When the smoke comes, fold this cloth like so, dip it in the water, and hold it to your face. This will make breathing easier.” When she saw that I did not understand her instructions, she took me by the hand and comprehension flowed through me like a stream of crystal-clear water.
All in an instant, I understood the magnitude of her sacrifice. For the trickle of power that had flowed out of her was gone forever. She would never have it again.
Shock
ed, I bowed low before her.
My face must have revealed my every thought, for Inanna smiled. “I thank you for your sympathy,” she said. “But your gratitude comes too soon. I cannot stay here, holding your hand, and without my touch you will revert to what you were before. But be patient. Be brave. Work hard. And when all is done, there will be a time of healing."
Then she was gone, and with her the temporary gift of understanding.
That night, for the first time, I wept for myself as well as for Silili.
In the morning, walls of flame converged upon us, destroying forests and reed-marshes alike. But Inanna's charm was strong, and Shaleb had so cunningly redirected the waters that the flames could not reach us. Even so, the sun did not shine that day, and when night came, we could see the campfires of the Igigi, ring upon ring of them through the murky distance. Their numbers were legion. My heart grew cold at the sight.
For an instant I felt a bleak and total despair. And in that instant, I leapt up from where I had been lying, exhausted, and seized a rope, looped it around a nearby log, and turned to the nearest supervisor. It was Damuzi, who had never been particularly fond of me.
I snorted, as if I were an ox. Then I tugged at the rope. I looked around me, from one quarter of the camp to another. Then I snorted again.
Damuzi looked astonished. Then he laughed. He pointed to a far section of our defenses where the palisades were incomplete. His finger moved from palisades to logs, back and forth repeatedly, until I nodded my comprehension: As many logs as I could manage. Mylitta, who, through her frequent exposure to Irra, had become a man-beast like myself, had been watching us intently. Now she leaped up and looped a length of rope around the far side of my log. She looked at me and snorted.
Together we pulled.
* * * *
The next day, the Igigi had advanced so close that they could be seen, like swarming insects, on the far side of the lake we had created as our first line of defense. Those who could—those with wings or the ability to swim—attacked us directly. A monstrous feathered serpent came twisting through the water and smashed into the lakefront wall with such force that logs splintered and buckled. Meanwhile, creatures that were something like bears and something like squids descended from the sky and tried to seize People in their tentacles.
Though we cast them back, they kept returning. Pain meant nothing to the Igigi and so varied were their forms that it was difficult to find a way to cripple them all. Even King Nimrod was hard pressed to counter them.
It was then that Humbaba came lumbering forward. “Great hunter, draw your bow!” he cried. And when Nimrod had done as he directed, “Point it toward the nearest of the foe. Let loose thy arrow. Speed it toward the abomination's body!"
The arrow sped. When it struck the feathered serpent, the demon threw back its head and howled. Then it fell and did not rise again.
"What wonder is this?” somebody asked.
"It is my greatest gift, for once given it cannot be taken back,” Humbaba said. “I call it death."
At his direction, we set upon the invaders with sticks and knives and rocks. They fell before our onslaught and, briefly, all was satisfactory. But in the aftermath, there lay one body on the ground which was not that of an Igigi. It belonged to Shullat, who was gentle and fond of animals and of whom nobody ever had a bad word to say.
Shullat's death saddened us all greatly, for she was the first of the People ever to die.
* * * *
That same day, shortly after sundown, Atraharsis passed through the camp distributing spears and knives as long as a tall man's arm. These latter were unknown to us before this, and he had to demonstrate their use over and over again, the sweat on his face glistening by the light of our campfires.
He did not offer any to the oxen, of course, for we were no longer People. But I watched carefully and when I thought I understood how the knives were to be used, stood before him and made a coughing sound to get his attention. Then I pointed to the long-knife, made a slashing motion, and said, “Swssh."
Atraharsis stared in astonishment. I gestured in the direction of the Igigi hordes. Then I turned my back on them and, waving my arms in a whimsical fashion, cried, “Uloolaloolaloo!” in as close as I could manage to the demons’ nonsense-speech.
Those standing nearby laughed.
I pretended I held a long-knife and spun around. I jabbed. “Swssh!” I became an Igigi again, clutched my stomach, and made “Glugluglug” noises to indicate blood flowing out. Finally, I became myself and, face furious with hatred, hacked and slashed at my imagined foe. “Swssh! Swssh! Swssh!"
Then I pointed to the bundle of long knives in Atraharsis's arms. “Swssh.” I held out my hand.
Atraharsis's face darkened.
He aimed a kick at me.
I danced back and nearly fell into the campfire. He advanced upon me, speaking angrily. Out of all he said, I caught only the words “traitor” and “Igigi.” But it enraged those listening and they rained blows upon me.
All in a panic, I broke free of the throng and tried to escape their wrath. Jeers and clods of mud flew after me. The children pursued me with sticks.
I was harried across the camp all the way to the outermost palisade. There I slipped through the half-rebuilt gap in the wall created when the feathered serpent had smashed into it. I ran up the new lakefront until it opened out into marshland again, and there I lost my pursuers. For a time I wandered, lost and miserable, among the reeds and island copses, with nowhere to go and no place I could stay. Then a pack of seven-tailed wolves that glowed a gentle blue in the moonlight surrounded me and took me captive.
I became a prisoner of the Igigi.
* * * *
Now began for me the darkest part of that dark era. Every day I was driven along with the other captives to the lakeside across from the First Haven fortifications. The first time, we were lashed with whips that stung like scorpions while we tried desperately to intuit what we were meant to do. Finally, randomly, one of our number began scooping up mud with his hands and the whips moved away from him. We others joined him with hands and flat stones and scraps of wood and soon it became apparent that we were digging a trench to drain the lake.
How often I looked up from my work to stare longingly across that lake! The Igigi continued to attack the People by ones and threes. Sometimes they returned with captives, but more commonly they were slain. Yet they seemed not to learn from this, for they neither lessened nor increased their attacks, nor did they alter their tactics.
Nighttimes, we were herded into a walled enclosure (we had built it ourselves, of course) where we were fed from a trough and slept huddled together like animals. If I'd thought I was an ox before, I was doubly so now, for my fellows were no longer recognizable as People. They had given up all hope of rescue and when I tried to recreate my crude system of snorts and signs with them, they did not respond. They crapped and coupled in the open as the urge took them and pissed right where they stood. Their eyes, when they looked upon me at all, were dull and lifeless.
They had despaired.
Almost, I despaired as well. But the Igigi had taken Silili from me and that meant that she was out here, somewhere, in their vast encampment. So my thoughts were foremost and forever upon her and even when I was most exhausted I never ceased from looking for her. Hopeless though my cause might be, it maintained me when nothing else could.
Then, one evening, Irra came to the slave pens. He was dressed in spotless white blouse and trousers. There was a coiled leather strap in his hand and a knowing smile on his face.
Reflexively, I tried to cry out his name—but of course that had disappeared from my mind long ago—and managed only a kind of barking sound.
Unhurriedly, Irra tied the strap about my neck. Then, holding one end in a negligent hand, he turned and walked away.
Perforce, I followed.
We walked not toward the dam but through the Igigi encampment. What a foulness they had mad
e of the clean, stream-fed lands! The trees were uprooted and the marsh grasses burnt to stubble and ashes. Craters had been blasted in the earth. The ground was trampled into mud. This did not bother Irra, for he walked a hand's-breadth above it, but there were places where I sank to the knees in cold muck and was half-choked by his impatient tugging on the leash before I could struggle free. Dimly, then, I began to realize that Urdumheim was not a place but a condition ... and that, struggle though I might, I was helplessly mired within it.
Eventually we came to a halt in a place that was neither better nor worse than any other in that horrid and despoiled landscape. Here, Irra pulled a small but obviously sharp knife from his pocket. He held up his little finger before my face and made a long and angry speech, not a word of which I understood.
Then he cut off the tip of his finger.
Blood spurted.
Irra thrust the finger-stub at me, and I backed away uncomprehendingly. With a noise of disgust, he pried open my mouth and shoved the gobbet of flesh in. I gagged, but he forced me to swallow.
"Can you understand me now?” he asked.
I could!
"This will only work between the two of us,” Irra said sternly. “Do not think you can return to the People now, for you cannot. To them, you will remain as dumb as a stone and their speech shall be to you as the twittering of birds."
"I understand.” I almost didn't care, so great was my relief to be able to speak again. I felt as if a part of my mind had been restored to me. I could think clearly for the first time since my capture.
"Then follow me."
* * * *
Deep in the Igigi encampment, we came upon a tremendous fish. It was larger by far than any whale. A silvery film covered the vast, listless eye that stared blindly at the sky from its rotting side. Flies swarmed all about it and the smell was so terrible I almost vomited. Irra had to half-choke me to keep me going. The stench grew worse the closer we got, until we reached the pink gill slit and so passed within.
FSF, October 2007 Page 25
