by Jon Saboe
As his eyes adjusted, Peleg saw they were heading straight for the Citadel. For some unknown reason, as they drew closer, he thought of Thaxad, who had created the sky-blue chalcanthite which plated the entire structure.
When they arrived, Buan walked up the marble steps and right through the entry gates where he approached a guard who was seated behind a large stone desk.
“I believe you have something for me,” Buan said to the guard, without introduction.
The guard looked at Peleg and his companions for a moment, then looked down on a parchment which lay unrolled before him. Peleg thought he recognized the guard from when he was last here, but couldn’t be certain.
Eventually, the guard looked up at Peleg, then back to Buan.
“Yes,” he nodded, “I believe I do.”
With that he reached under the desk and retrieved a small leather satchel which was obviously full and seemed heavier than it ought to for its size. He handed it to Buan.
“It’s all here,” he said. “All thirty Kaspum.”
Buan’s eyes gleamed as he hefted the small bag filled with silver coins. He bowed his thanks to the guard, and turned back to Peleg.
In Akkadian again, he said, “I just want you to know that your son would not have approved of this. But I don’t share his familial inhibitions, and, since I waited until you arrived here, he will never know.” He smiled and raised his moneybag. “But you will be happy to know that this is more than Master Reu pays me in a month!”
Buan gave his “attendants” a cursory nod and headed down the steps to the outer courtyard. Soon he would be back on a vessel to Uruk and he would simply explain to Reu that his business excursion had been unsuccessful—and that he had discovered nothing concerning Peleg’s whereabouts. He was also confident that news of Peleg’s arrival would never reach Reu—or anyone else.
It was to be the worst night of Peleg’s life.
It was not because the three of them were now imprisoned on the second level of the Citadel in a small, hot room which used to be a classroom. Peleg had spent weeks isolated in much smaller and darker places with no knowledge of where he was.
It was not because their only meal that day had consisted of damp rice, over-ripe figs, lemon peels, and a jug of water which a guard had brought to them late that afternoon. Peleg had learned over the last thirteen years to tolerate little or no food—and his standards for the types and quality of food he was willing to eat had lowered considerably.
It wasn’t even because his beloved city had degenerated into a morass of superstition and intellectual chaos. That was something which would take a long time to comprehend, if ever, and he knew that it would be months before he could come to terms with the enormity of what had happened. Besides, he held out hope that there were others here who felt as he did; and that a return to sanity was not completely impossible.
What did make it the worst night of his life was the music.
In the corner of their room was a small slot carved into the stone wall which allowed air—and a thin shaft of light—to enter from the outside. Soon after their rations arrived, the beam of light lengthened, thinned, and eventually disappeared as evening settled in, and Peleg gradually became aware that a large crowd was assembling outside.
He pushed a wooden dais (from which he had probably once given lectures) below the slot and climbed up on the attached railings. By balancing against the wall and standing on the tips of his toes, he was able to peer through the opening and watch the people as they gathered. The slot traveled about half a meter through the wall, and afforded a very narrow viewing angle, but the crowd was some distance away, and if he tipped his head downward, he could see the reason for their gathering.
There was a large amphitheater, the Kadingir, just to the west of the Citadel, and from Peleg’s vantage point, he could see the central stage and the ascending tiers in front where the crowd was gathering. Peleg had attended many public lectures and several concerts there. He could not have known it, but this was the same amphitheater where Salah and Reu-Nathor had been killed.
Tonight’s event was obviously a concert. The stage was set with several large skin drums, rattles, cymbals, and other percussion instruments, an assortment of brass horns of varying sizes, and a large, beautifully crafted golden lyre, inlaid with mosaics of lapis lazuli and red limestone carvings. He twisted to try and see more of the stage, but his extended and aching toes failed him and he slipped from the railing. He tried desperately to catch himself with his elbow, but he only succeeded in scraping it badly, tearing his outer sleeve. He slid down quickly, striking first his shins, and then his chin on the railing, causing him to bite his tongue. He came to a sudden, painful stop as his knees struck the dais platform, and he yelped in pain, spitting blood.
The commotion brought Shem rushing to his side, but Peleg angrily pushed him away, refusing to speak. Shem returned to sitting silently on the floor, his back resting against the wall with his knees raised. Bernifal, who never seemed to sleep, was actually snoring loudly, curled up in the middle of the floor, wearing just his fur. His fine new suit was tossed in a heap in the corner—not far from the clay bucket which provided its own obvious function.
Peleg sat on the dais in embarrassed anger, nursing his injuries, and trying to clear the taste of blood from his mouth. There was no reason to budge from his position, and he remained, unmoving, in his stupor. This minor physical injury had been a psychological breaking point as it compounded the numerous emotional and mental grievances of the day. He could only hope that the music, which would begin soon, might sooth his thoughts and give him something else to focus on. He had not heard quality music since he had left Ur, and, although he had no advanced training in musical theory, he looked forward to appreciating a good composition.
Almost an hour later, loud cheering and applause indicated the start of the concert. Soon, a pounding, repetitive drumbeat began, and Peleg waited for the music to develop.
It never did.
It was the most horrifying and agonizing affair that Peleg had ever listened to. The pulse continued, only slightly punctuated by horn riffs, and the occasional strum or accented pizzicato slaps of the lyre. Above the beat, loud incompressible chants were shouted out by “singers”, who seemed only interested in increasing the frenzy through sheer volume and repetition.
There was no rhythmic counterpoint, no polyphony, and no structure. No craftsmanship. No math! It was impossible to consider that anyone could accept this as a completed composition. He tried desperately to listen for variations in modes, alternative tunings, metric modulations, or anything that would indicate some numeric sophistication, but he could discern nothing.
Mercifully, the “song” came to an end, only to be replaced by another which was identical, except that the lead “vocalist” was a female. He was also able to make out a few words, but they seemed to focus on proclaiming the superiority of the Queen of Heaven, and the term nam-úš, or death. There was also a short bridge which encouraged the use of chemical or biological hallucinogens to assist in visiting the dead, or for gleaning “higher” understanding. The number ended with screams of “Visit Death!” repeated incessantly as the audience joined in with exaggerated exuberance, until it crescendoed into deafening drums and thunderous applause which bombarded the walls of the Citadel and ultimately became the ending ovation.
Sweet silence finally filled their classroom prison, but soon Peleg heard the solo sound of the lyre. He glanced up hopefully towards the slot above him, but quickly realized that the new song, although more of a ballad, was still a repetitive, structureless, two-chord piece with a meandering melismatic melody sung by an airy female voice. The words seemed to refer to the same story which the merchant girl had mentioned and that everyone else seemed to know. How the Queen of Heaven and rescued her dead lover from the underworld. The song’s only refrain went like this:
O gatekeeper, open your gate,
Open your gate so I may enter!
If you do no
t open the gate so I can enter,
I will smash the door; I will shatter the bolt,
I will smash the doorpost; I will remove the doors,
And I will raise the dead to consume the living,
And the dead will outnumber the living.
And the dead will outnumber the living.
After the third repetition, loud discordant horns blasted a long, low-pitched fanfare which introduced a new drumbeat—and the “music” escalated to the fervor and pandemonium of the previous numbers. Accompanying singers joined the soloist, and soon a large chorus of screaming sopranos and counter-tenors were leading the crowd in a refrain with lines like “Raise the dead!” and “Consume the living!” while an angry ostinato bass chant of “Smash the door, smash the door!” echoed beneath.
A morbid curiosity overtook Peleg, and, against his better judgment, he stood up and reclaimed his perch on the dais railing and peered out, his ankles protesting their return to standing on tiptoe.
Explosions of pulsing light from the amphitheater blinded him momentarily until his eyes adjusted and he saw two large flash pots on either side of the stage spitting out fountains of fiery sparks and incandescing flakes of zinc and magnesium which shot up into the air at regular intervals. There were also several tall fire-sticks surrounding the front of the stage, tossing additional sparks and smoke into the crowd. Fire-sticks were thin wooden poles, coated in a slurry of water and starch, with a mixture of barium nitrate, aluminum perchlorate, charcoal, and sulfur. Before it dried into a hard resin, it was coated with flakes of magnesium, sugar, and zinc, then positioned on the stage. These sticks must have been ignited recently, because the shower of multicolored sparks still emanated from near the top of the poles.
From his backstage view, he could see the drummers pounding their skin drums, and for a moment, he was surprised to see that the women were wearing beards. He was even more shocked when he realized that the percussionists were men, and that they were unshaven, with the longest, most disheveled hair he had ever seen on a man. As his eyes moved to the front of the stage, he couldn’t help but notice the costumes—and how scantily-clad the performers were. The men were all stripped to the waist, while the women wore short skirts with exposed shoulders and strips of cloth covering their breasts. Everyone was gyrating in a formless free-for-all which apparently was meant to constitute dancing.
With this new visual information, Peleg was suddenly confronted with the waves of sexual energy which accompanied the throbbing rhythms and pulsating fireworks. The main “singers” at the front of the stage were wearing amplification masks with hideous multicolored faces which could only be representations of any one of a number of demi-gods or other mythical entities. Or Anunnaki, he thought dismally.
Peleg’s gaze moved past the flashes of fire into the audience, which was comprised of young people dressed as immodestly as the performers. They were made-up with similar netherworld-inspired face paint, and could not have included anyone older than twenty. All of them would have been under seven years old when he left. In fact, his youngest children might even be among them! These children were all on their feet, their heads bobbing as one to the deafening pulse of the drums, their right hands raised high in a fist. The refrain had now degenerated into the repetitive “Smash the door, smash the door!”, which was only slightly syncopated against the prevailing back-beat of the skin drums. The audience shouted at the top of their lungs, in unison with the performers, creating a deafening chant which roared and echoed throughout the city. Peleg allowed himself one brief moment of sad amusement as he realized that this was the closest thing to counterpoint he had heard all night.
He felt his ankles collapsing, and he quickly sank down away from the slot and lowered himself back on to the dais platform. The refrain continued, and he thought that surely that door should be smashed by now. The pounding sub-divided, doubling in speed, and he could see flickers of light from the overhead slot as additional pyrotechnics exploded outside. The powerful wall of sound continued, and he sank down on the platform and hung his head, wondering how his city could survive such a cultural reversal.
A great deal can happen in twelve years.
Somehow, Shem’s words caused even more agony now than when he had uttered them months ago.
Finally, the performance ended with the same thunderous confusion as the preceding numbers, except that, as the noise dissipated, the female soloist re-sang the final line of the original verse in a fading, whimpering plea: “…and the dead will outnumber the living…” A curious phrase, Peleg thought, since ultimately it would have to be true. He enjoyed a few moments of quiet between the cheers of the audience, and the beginning of the next number.
Peleg did not try to count how many “songs” were performed that night. He was, however, able to discern some individual themes from them: One attempted to be a romantic song which soon evolved into clamorous waves of raucous discord which was somehow both violent and sexual. Another was “sung” by a performer claiming to be Nunska, the god of fire, who proudly declared himself the most destructive of all the gods. The rest of the performances were concerned with obsessive sexuality, hallucinogenic enlightenment, and self-referential praise to the raw pounding energy within the music itself. The only other exception was a piece which told of someone named Tammuz who had somehow “killed” death. Regardless of the topic, the musical structure was unchanging: Begin with a relentless, monotonous beat—and then increase in volume.
He sat on the dais, numbed into oblivion. The constant barrage of strident sounds funneled through the overhead slot and accosted the walls of the Citadel itself. Somehow music itself had been stripped of everything musical, and was now reduced to two avenues of expression: Sensuality and exhilaration. As a man, Peleg was certainly able to appreciate both; but they should be confined to pleasant surprises within music, not the totality of the musical experience.
He wasn’t sure when the concert ended, because he awoke, cold and stiff, still sitting on the dais, long after the crowds had left. Somehow, he had dozed off during the unwavering wall of sound, which had put him to sleep just as assuredly as a monotone speaker or a rocking ship.
It was now deadly silent outside and no light came from the overhead slot, but a diffuse carpet of ambient illumination came from under the door, probably from a wall lamp or torch in the adjoining hallway. He peeled himself off of the platform and walked stiffly over towards Shem, who was still sitting motionless with his back against the wall. He navigated around the still snoring Bernifal, and eventually stopped, standing silently over Shem, who had his eyes closed, but it was impossible to determine whether or not he was asleep.
“You are afraid.”
Shem’s voice startled him as it cut through the silence of the early morning. Peleg squatted down beside him, but Shem kept his eyes shut.
“I’m not afraid,” Peleg retorted angrily, realizing as he said it that he was, in fact, terrified. He was terrified of what had become of his city. He was terrified that his beloved Citadel had degenerated into promoting what it used to oppose. He was terrified, wondering why they had not been taken directly to Inanna, and becoming even more terrified with each passing hour they waited; terrified and worried about what he would find—and what the outcome of the inevitable meeting might be.
He was also terrified to realize that (unbelievably) the most rational and sane person he knew was Shem. The manic, madman Shem. Peleg was alone in his home city, and could think of no one he could turn to—or trust.
They sat for a few moments in silence, until Shem asked a simple question.
“What is the opposite of fear?”
Peleg squinted in the darkness, trying to make sense of the inquiry. Eventually he answered, “Contentment? Or perhaps security?”
Shem’s eyes opened.
“No,” he said simply. “Those are simply the absence of fear. The opposite is that which is required to remove it—the remedy for fear.”
Peleg si
ghed in fatigue and hunger. He knew he would get no more sleep before morning. He realized that his expected meeting with Inanna was nothing more than an assumption. He might be held here indefinitely. He responded to Shem with a strange mix of anxiety and boredom.
“What is the opposite, then?”
“Love,” Shem answered instantly.
Peleg’s boredom turned to confusion, but he knew that Shem was heading into another lecture. But Shem shifted subjects suddenly with another question.
“Can you give me an example of symbiosis?”
Startled, Peleg took a few moments before answering.
“Well,” he began, “I can think of bees which collect pollen for their nourishment and survival, yet also contribute to the survival of fruit trees by transferring the pollen from flower to flower.” He recalled many years ago, Serug had been obsessed with botany and demonstrated artificial cross-pollination to him. Young Serug had just begun his courses in heredity.
Shem was nodding.
“Very good,” he said.
Peleg suddenly remembered something that someone had once told him. He couldn’t remember who.
“I heard that sheep are unable to live without human care,” he said. “Supposedly they will die from overheating if their wool is not shorn, and they can drown from the weight of their wet fleece if they fall into water. In fact, I was told that they can sometimes fall over from the weight—and are unable to right themselves. I guess that’s symbiosis: we need them for wool—and they need us for survival.”
“Excellent,” Shem nodded again, eager to continue his thought. “Allow me to offer a few more examples of which you are probably unaware.”
He shifted to look more directly at Peleg.
“There are trees which would die if it weren’t for large colonies of ants which live on the tree and fight off organisms which would attack and otherwise destroy the tree. Also, these trees have soft surfaces which allow seeds from other plants to take root—and when they do, these seedlings damage and destroy the tree. Only the ants, which patrol the tree, eat and destroy these seedling invaders, keeping the tree healthy. In exchange, the tree secretes a nectar that has no purpose other than feeding the ants and keeping them healthy—and in the service of the tree.”
