The Descent Read online

The Descent

  A Tale of Ancient Assyria

  L.J. Hayward

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  Copyright L.J. Hayward 2015

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  Cover Design by L.J. Hayward

  Other Books

  Night Call Series

  Blood Work

  Demon Dei

  Here Be Dragons (short story)

  Rock Paper Sorcery

  Bone Magic Trilogy

  Dead Bones

  The Descent

  A Tale of Ancient Assyria

  Enlil, father of the gods, said, “Let Enkidu die...”

  I stood on a barren plain, grey and cold. Above me the heavens hung low, boiling clouds dark with the anger of the gods. They argued about me. I, Enkidu, the wild man caught and tamed, forced into the civilised life of a man. Forced to die like a man—at the behest of the gods.

  Before me was a window, framed in stone and suspended in mid-air. Through the window I saw a room, bright with the glory of Shamash, the Sun God, and within that room was Gilgamesh—my friend, my mirror, my bane. He sat at the bedside of an ailing man, his grim countenance such that those who saw it might think he was the one about to die.

  “Why?” I heard him say to the man on the bed. “Why are you punished alone for the deeds we did together?”

  “It is not punishment.” The words came from beyond the window.

  The speaker was a man, but the strangest man I had ever beheld. His face resembled Anzu, his hands were the paws of a lion and his nails the talons of an eagle.

  “Who are you?” I asked, hands feeling for my ever present knives.

  “I am to be your guide.” He smelt of dry things; dust in a drought, sunburnt grass on an empty field, wind off the desert. His scent swarmed through me, reminding me of death and long forgotten decay.

  It made me think of the words of the gods, condemning me to this end while Gilgamesh lived.

  A knife was in my hand without a thought. I spun, bringing its keen edge to the strange man’s neck. In a blink, he was gone and the blade cut through nothing but heavy air. Above me, the clouds roared and beneath my feet, the ground growled back.

  A blow fell on my arm, numbing it so the blade dropped from my grip. Whirling to face him, I struck my attacker with my other fist but he dodged so swiftly I barely saw him move. He hit me from behind, and again I moved to meet him. Viper fast he knocked my blow aside and caught my legs with one of his own. I was on my back, last of the breath crushed from my body, before I realised what had happened.

  With a mighty roar, the man trampled me like a wild bull.

  Tossed and beaten, I rolled so I faced the window. Gilgamesh stood now, looking out at this dull expanse.

  “Help me, my friend,” I called, reaching a bruised hand toward him.

  Gilgamesh shivered despite the warmth of sunlight all around him. “The gods give only so that they may take away,” he said, though it seemed he looked right through me. “They leave the living in sorrow. Yet it is my only path. I must seek the compassion of the gods.”

  Turning away, he went to the bed and lay a hand upon the brow of the ill man for a moment, then left.

  Gilgamesh, my brother in all but blood, walked away from me.

  “He will not help you.”

  Devastated, I let my head fall to the cold ground. The strange man stood between me and the last image of Gilgamesh.

  “He is Gilgamesh,” I whispered. “His deeds will be as legends. He will do anything for me.”

  “He will. But he will fail.” The man held out his lion paw. “Come. It is time we left.”

  “I will go nowhere with you.”

  “You are a man, and all men come with me.”

  That dry smell caught in my mouth. It felt as if the tender flesh of my throat cracked like parched soil and I couldn’t speak. I wanted to scream I was not a man; I was not destined to die like this. All the magnificent things I had done beside Gilgamesh, and this, this, was my reward. No! I would not go with this strange man. I would fight the fate decreed by the gods and win my place at Gilgamesh’s side once more.

  Ignoring the searing pain, the rush of blood across torn muscles, I rolled to my feet, drawing from my belt my second knife. Dancing with my anger, I lashed the blade toward my foe.

  He swayed aside and caught my wrist in his lion’s paw, eagle talons curling around my arm. Gentle though his hold seemed, it held me fast, stealing strength and motion. In a heartbeat, all the pain of his attack vanished. My wounds healed, leaving not even the faintest of scars.

  The deep, fathomless eyes gazed into me and I saw the dark road that ended in the house where those who entered never came out - the dwelling of Ikralla. There they lived without light, their drink was dirt and their food clay. Their clothes were feathers and everywhere there was dust. On the bolts of the doors, on the plates they ate from, in the cups they drank from. Dust on the discarded, forgotten crowns of kings who now kneeled, serving Anu and Enlil cooked meats and sweets.

  Such powerful men brought so low by the act of death.

  I saw in his eyes a door closing. Behind me, the light from the window vanished.

  “You will come.” His words were as solid and irrefutable as the walls of Uruk.

  I went.

  The road that only goes one way was paved with dark stones. To either side the empty plain stretched into a dim haze. We stepped onto the start of the road, but after several strides, when I turned to look behind, to perhaps see a last time the window and the image of my king, I saw instead the road existed forever behind us. There was no hint of the window, no faint blush of dawn, to show where I had come from.

  Resigned, I faced ahead again.

  Before there had been nothing but the road and the strange man, but there was now a mountain. It seemed a good distance away, the road leading right to its base. But as we walked, the mountain grew as if every step was a thousand steps. When we reached it, the mountain was impossibly high, its peak hidden in the low hanging clouds.

  At the place where the road met the mountain, there was a gate. Twice my height and made from the same stone as the road. Before it stood a creature that was part man, part scorpion. His chest and face that of a man, his arms and legs the chitinous, many-jointed limbs of a scorpion, his hands pincers. Rising from his back was an overarching tail, poisonous sting ready to strike.

  “Nedu,” my guide said. “The guardian of the first gate.”

  The scorpion-man clicked towards me. “Before you pass my gate, you must relieve yourself of a weight you brought from the world of the living.”

  “A weight?” I asked.

  The sting bobbed over my head. “Some offer clothes, some jewellery. All offer something that means nothing in the place they are going to.”

  The vision of the House of Dust rose in my mind, the scent of dryness returned. Not even a crown of gold meant anything in that place. My hand lifted to my head. No crown of gold for me but a helmet of iron and bronze.

  I pulled the helmet off and my hair fell down about my face. I flicked it out of my eyes and remembered another time, another place when Gilgamesh had done the very same thing.

  “Let us see if she likes me now,” my friend had said, sweaty hair pushed out of his face, clothes splattered with blood, eyes bright, teeth flashing in his wild, manic grin.

  Between us lay the Bull of Heaven. Caught up in his wilful, joyful disobedience, I laughed and joined him in cutting the great creature’s body open. Blood to the elbows, it took both of us to wrest to the massive heart from its nest of vessels and tissues. Rejoicing, the people of Uruk brought us kindling and oil. We made a pyre for the heart and set it alight.

  On impulse, I threw my bloodied arms wide and shouted, “O Shamash, Sun God, hear my words. Accept th
is offering so your glory may shine on Uruk evermore!”

  On the walls of Uruk, a wail sounded. The goddess Ishtar flung herself to her knees. “Woe unto Gilgamesh who slandered me and killed the Bull of Heaven!” Her curse billowed down from the wall.

  At my feet was one hindquarter of the Bull. Without thought, I hefted it by the leg, spun and loosed it at the goddess. The sight of her realisation of what I’d done, her too-slow scramble to escape the flying meat, the splatter of blood across her exquisite face, the slap of raw flesh on her fine clothes, all of it, made me laugh.

  “If only I could get to you,” I yelled, “I would do the same to you.” Her horrified expression drove me to harder laughter.

  Even here in this cold, empty place, I chuckled. I ran a hand back through my hair. Such vanities that would have a man defy a goddess and laugh about it. I looked at the helmet in my hand. What had it gained us in the end? Very little and what little there was, ended with me in this place. The joy died as surely as I must.

  I tossed it to the scorpion-man. He caught it and, after a glance, threw it at the gates. The iron clanged loudly against the gate and, rather than bounce off, melted into the black stone. As the last of the