Pretender

CHAPTER 16.

Enkidu, driven by horror, fled Gabatha’s house. Tamar tried to hold him, but he shoved her away in his blind rush to escape, and lost her in the crowd of men and women filling the house.

A full moon rode high in the east, casting its pale yellow light and deep shadows upon the streets and the distant celebrants and the cubic houses. The Milky Way spread out above, a luminous, tattered veil, bringing to mind another night he had walked alone in the streets of Babylon. Now, as then, he felt an eerie camaraderie with that vision, as though the stars were something more than mere light to decorate and alleviate the monotony of night. He felt an unreasonable urge to rise up to one of those stars, and live there, joining with other entities…

From one end of the street hooves clopped restively against the solid-packed debris and brick fragments. In the moonlight and the fitful glare of the torch of a passer-by he made out a bearded man in a faded soldier’s tunic of foreign cut. And a pie-bald horse.

It looked very much like a Persian.

“Enkidu!”

He jumped, but it was not the horseman who had called. Tamar had wrestled her way out of the house, and now came purposely toward him, garbed as before. No—he saw now that she had donned a loose robe whose color was subdued in the moonlight, to the point of invisibility. Two or three of her women trailed her, pulling on similar apparel and studying the horseman with an interest that seemed reciprocal.

Enkidu waited dully as she approached. But he had a sudden, irrational premonition: he must not let her touch him. Something—perhaps his childhood shedu voice—was warning him of dire consequence… if.

“Enkidu—I’m going to be terribly busy now that the city has changed hands—”

“Changed hands?” He glanced again at the soldier.

“You don’t know? Look around you. The Persian is here.”

“Yes, I see him.”

“I mean all the Persians. The host of them. Gobryas’ men are inside the walls now—”

“Gobryas?” He edged away as she edged near.

“Cyrus’ general. Cyrus himself will no doubt be here soon…”

Enkidu stared at her, jerked for a moment from his general state of shock. “They’re inside? Where is the fighting? The pillage?”

Yet the Hebrew slave had said something—and where there was one Persian, there could be a thousand more. He recalled how indifferent the residents of Babylon had seemed to the threat of Cyrus, though the man had already had impressive successes in the field. Could it be—could it possibly be—that Cyrus had kept Babylon waiting only in order to take her at the right time? That he had waited as one waits for a medlar—for that precise moment between ripeness and rot when one may with profit bite into the fruit?

The old wonder and awe of Babylon remained. She was a lovely, careless woman, who needed the guiding hand that her own ruler had failed to hold out to her.

“Elsewhere in the city, what there is of it,” Tamar said, answering his question after a long pause. She, too, was contemplating the Persian soldier speculatively. “But no one is eager to go out and get killed over an issue already decided. So long as their homes and places of business are not looted, they will not give the conqueror much trouble, I think. Cyrus is not one to permit indiscriminate pillage.”

“But what about the defenders on the walls, the soldiers? No army could pass—”

“The mercenaries? The Persian troops got around the wall somehow, and not by tunneling. Maybe they turned into birds and flew in. They’re here, anyway, and the cone-heads on the wall are not breaking their legs rushing out to get themselves skewered, either. Not for townspeople who show no interest in defending themselves and who probably aren’t good for their next wages. I daresay the wallkeepers will have to go to work now—for Cyrus.”

She was still slinking toward him, and he was still retreating. They were a good distance down the street now. “You’d better see to your women,” Enkidu suggested. He just wanted to be left alone with his grief.

“I thought we might—” she began, but broke off when she saw that she wasn’t going to catch him. So, with another easy about-face, she pulled her half-open robe about her. “Yes. I’m going to be terribly busy now. All those Persian soldiers hot from the campaign… we’ll have to put the temple on double shift. A—a husband would only obstruct things now. I’m afraid I’m going to have to divorce you—”

If she expected that threat to change his mind, she was mistaken. “I understand,” Enkidu said dully. “I wouldn’t want to interfere with your religion.”

For an instant total rage distorted her face. Then, so quickly that he wondered if he had imagined her anger, she was smiling graciously and waving an affectionate parting to him. She moved back up the street with her women in tow.

Perversely, now, he was sorry to see her go. It could have been a memorable experience…

But not so soon after his real love had died! He must respect the worship of another person, however sensual and self-interested… but that did not require him to bury his love for Amys in the arms of the priestess of Ishtar.

His aspirations had been small as the world reckoned such things, he thought grayly as he tramped without destination up one New City street and down another. He could still hear the inebriated celebrants of the Harvest Festival. Those people would have an extremely sober awakening tomorrow!

Harvest Festival… the harvest of his aspirations would have involved the death of no person, the conquest of no city. He had wanted only to commune with his chosen god and to honor that god in the conduct of his life. He respected the ambitions of other people; if only others had seen fit to respect his! Even slaves, most of them, had choice of god and woman—both denied to him forever.

Why?

One god or another had smiled on the ambitions of Cyrus, and of Nebuchadnezzar before him, and of the old Assyrian kings before that…

NK-2 was safe for the moment. But his job was not done. He had to locate the galactic representative of Station A-10, and formulate some initiative to eliminate the enemy. The repair craft was due soon, and if TM-R intercepted that…! In fact TM-R might have let him go again, deliberately, planning to pounce when he went either to his own craft or made contact with the repair mission.

TM-R had enormous leverage, for the host Tamar could influence almost any man in Babylon, including the Persian commander. He would have to do whatever was necessary here, then get out of the city before the enemy finally moved to eliminate him. If he found the other galactic, he could take him away too. Possibly together they could make an effective counterstroke, perhaps by investing Cyrus himself and having him execute Tamar for sedition.

His host was walking aimlessly when time was precious. It was time for new motivation. He had to check the nameless temple thoroughly, exploring everywhere with his penumbra.

But that was the last place Enkidu would want to go! How could he reverse that inclination, at least for an hour?

Perhaps through the man’s own grief, unkind as that was. Unless he helped mitigate that sorrow at the same time—Yes. There was a relevant concept!

…Yet no god had seen fit to intervene to prevent the imprisonment and slavery and death of a young and gentle girl who had worshiped a god of mercy. Indeed, her road to oblivion had begun at the point where she expected her god to honor his commitments.

Could he have saved her by holding out against the torture? Would Aten then have intervened, however belatedly, on Amys’ behalf?

No. A man had to do what he felt was right, and Enkidu had done that. If the genii were by their magic arts to give him back the last few days, he would renounce his god as quickly as before, and for the same reason. The only change he would make would be to fetch a dagger along for his visit to Gabatha, that he might slay the fat merchant before the beast slew Amyitis!

But how could that be justified in the name of mercy?

Was it thus that mortals were broken—by the worship of gods whose principles no mortal could fathom or honor?

He put this cold enigma aside. There was a single muddy marriage tablet imbedded in a prison wall that was worth more to him than all the machinations of—The tablet!

She had been alive when she drew her signature and then passed the document back to him, pledging their union. That was all he could ever have now of Amys—the words of love she had written while near him, though prisoner.

THY LOVE IS AS THE SCENT OF CEDAR WOOD…

He must recover it!

A Persian soldier stood outside the nameless temple. Other curly-bearded troopers guarded other places of value. Cyrus had indeed taken over the city. Would this sentry let him enter, or would he take Enkidu for a looter?

Enkidu rose to the occasion with a cunning he had not known he possessed. He marched boldly up. “What are you doing here?” he demanded with authority. “I do not know you.”

The guard was impressed. “Go about your business, citizen.” He had a heavy accent.

“My business lies in the temple. I am a Pretender,” he said, making it sound important. “You—you’re foreign, aren’t you? A mercenary?”

“I am a Mede,” the man said haughtily. “In the service of Cyrus the Conqueror. Just be glad I bother to speak your decadent language!”

“But Cyrus is outside the walls!”

The man fingered his beard. “That situation has changed.” He reached impatiently for his dagger. “Be off, before I forget my orders to treat you natives courteously.”

Enkidu backed off—toward the temple door. “But no one has breached the walls,” he protested, hoping the soldier would unriddle the mystery. “Babylon is impregnable.”

“Was impregnable,” the Mede said. “Now go! I can’t have you getting underfoot.” He waved his long dagger, and Enkidu retreated through the temple door.

The Persian troops, he realized, were good ones—well disciplined and not overbright. But how had they penetrated the city? This was a most unusual conquest!

He felt his way along the dark interior passage. Soon, traveling with more confidence as the terrain became familiar, he found the inside stair leading to the dungeons. The long period in these cells had educated his feet and fingertips. Less than a day and a night had passed since his residence. He passed the silent clock room. Presently he found the door to Amys’ old cell, then his own. The very closeness of the atmosphere seemed homey now, almost pleasant. Certainly it was familiar! This was the place where love had come to him. Through this wall he had conversed with her, had come to know her…

He loosened the key brick, fumbled for the tablet. His questing fingers discovered only ordinary bricks. Anxiously he removed them, first from the outer layer and then from the inner.

The tablet was gone.

But there was something else. Soft, woven material: cloth. He drew it out, felt the long fine shape of it. There was a hood, square sleeves… a cloak?

The marriage tablet gone; in its place a rich tunic.

It did not take Enkidu long to comprehend that the cloak had belonged to Sargan.

NK-2 quested out, alert for the presence of the enemy. But the environment was clear. Still, he had to be cautious, for this could be an enemy trap. If he invested too much of himself checking potential hosts, and then TM-R struck—Better to bring his own host close to any prospects, so that he could check by restricted, concentrated penumbra. Not direct physical contact, for if TM-R lurked here, that would be disastrous. But close noncontact, so that his field was most effective while the risk of invasion remained minimal.

If he could just get his host to circulate, here in the temple…

Sargan. How understand such a man? He had committed savage and calculated atrocities. He had imprisoned countless pretenders, supervised their torture, ruthlessly obliterated their honest, innocent faith. Only after he had rendered them broken and godless had he released them. All in the name of a god of mercy, of whom Sargan deemed himself Chosen. Even his own daughter, whose sole malefaction had been a human compassion…

Had this last act of his, the most evil transaction of all, been too great a load for even his hardened conscience? Obviously Sargan had come to this cell, found the tablet, divested himself of his cloak, and departed. Who could guess what jealous imperative guided him? Selling his daughter to Gabatha…

He had no further business here. Sargan had deprived him of the last vestige of Amyitis. And yet—There must be something of Amys here. There had to be! Some tangible token that she had once existed. Something she had touched. Something he could take and keep and cherish in lieu of the marriage tablet.

Should he search her cell?

No. He did not want to think of her in that filth and squalor. Anything he might find there would be associated only with her days of anguish and terror.

What about her seal? Sargan had evidently kept Enkidu’s own seal in the clock-room. Could Amyitis’ seal still be there?

Enkidu noticed with surprise when he reached the clock-room that he was still clutching Sargan’s cloak. He laid it down on Sargan’s chair, then proceeded to ransack the room. If he could find her seal…

Nothing. There were parchment-rolls, but all were bare. These fragile records were easy to destroy, and the priest had set his house in order before vacating.

“Amyitis!” he cried, in the tone he had once used to invoke his god. But, like his god, she was not here.

There were footsteps in the hall. Someone was coming!

He must not be seen here—but there was only the one exit. He looked about the room for a place to hide, finding nothing. Then his eye fell on Sargan’s robe.

In almost one motion Enkidu managed to slip into it, struggling with the voluminous sleeves and awkward cowl. He seated himself in Sargan’s chair, pulling the cowl close about his face.

It was Amalek, who looked at the robed figure in obvious surprise. “I had thought you departed already,” he remarked.

So Sargan had left. “Not yet,” Enkidu ventured almost in a whisper, hoping his voice would not betray him.

Amalek, somewhat at a loss, informed him of the latest news. There were rumors that Nabonaid had been assassinated; that the invaders were commanded by a general named Gobryas; that Cyrus himself would arrive later for a triumphal entry into Babylon. However that might be, Amalek added in tentative relief, the Persians were no Assyrians; apparently the populace was not to be indiscriminately butchered. But Gobryas had already stipulated that no things of value were to be moved, on pain of instant confiscation. The temple treasures would have to remain here until such time as the Persians came to take inventory and levy tribute.

Enkidu merely nodded in the manner of Sargan and hoped that Amalek would go away. But the man lingered. “Your orders with regard to the pretender Amyitis have been carried out.”

That much Enkidu already knew.

After a moment, Amalek added: “I have daughters of my own, as you know. I intend to raise them in unenlightened heathendom, and my son also. Perhaps in the Persian worship of Ahura Mazda.”

At last he left. Enkidu relaxed and looked at the frieze. The wall flickered in the light of the single lamp and strange pictures seemed to form. He wondered whether Aten could be seen within that framework, were Aten not a false god. It was as though everything pertaining to him belonged in a different life—a life now vanished like the glories of Nineveh. There was nothing for him here.

There was nothing for him anywhere.

He remembered Tamar’s comment that a god was very like a man.

Perhaps a god needed men for fulfillment of his divine existence, even as men needed a god in fulfillment of their mortal existence. Perhaps—NK-2 wrenched himself out of it. He had been following his host’s mental processes so closely, seeking the proper spot to nudge them in an advantageous direction, that he had started thinking like a man! Soon, if he were not careful, he would begin believing in the god Aten himself!

He had checked the native Amalek and found him void. Now he extended, alert for the enemy, seeking to locate the other natives of this temple.

Abruptly he encountered the expanding penumbra of another entity. He recoiled automatically before he realized that it was not TM-R.

It was another galactic. The station representative!

Enkidu realized that Dishon’s torture had forced him to examine his simple faith in greater depth, and that faith had thereby vanished into the nothingness of illusion. But he had also lost part of himself. He was now a wiser but a lesser man. The elimination of his innocence had made him less worthy than before. For a time he had replaced the love of his unattainable god with the love of an unobtainable woman—and now no vestige remained of either, and he was empty.

He divested himself of Sargan’s robe—and felt something hard and cylindrical in a pocket of one sleeve. He brought it out.

It was a seal, and it bore an intaglio design.

A butterfly.

“Thank Aten!” The words were out before he thought. It seemed that he could never entirely give over his faith, though he certainly could not accept it. Gone were the old certainties, either of belief or of disbelief.

He held up the seal and imagined it dangling between the breasts of a carefree young girl as she went about her concerns… this seal, whose purpose was to stamp the imprint of her existence on the clay documents that were a part of every Babylonian’s transactions.

Its symbolism staggered him in a sudden flash of revelation, and he wondered that he had never grasped it before.

The imprint of the seal upon clay. It symbolized the more subtle but unmistakable imprint of the spirit on the clay of life…

The seal existed after Amyitis herself had died. The imprints it had made could endure after the seal was gone. The imprint of Amys’ spirit, her love, remained on him regardless of her physical fate.

And the imprint of Aten remained upon them both, whether Aten existed now or not. Whether he had ever existed.

Perhaps Aten was not a god. Perhaps he was no more than a shedu, an invisible spirit. Perhaps he had descended from those bright stars above Babylon, and touched just a few people, and departed. Now, because he was gone, he could be labeled false—but that was only one way of looking at it.

As meaning to writing, so was that spirit to its host. As the seal on the envelope of an important document, validating it—false if the tablet were broken, but true so long as it remained intact.

Enkidu’s tablet—the tablet of his faith—had been broken. Yet he needed to validate that faith to no other person. Should he recover that faith, it would be as valid as before: his private tablet would be whole again. That was the difference between the spirit and the clay.

Somehow it seemed that if he could only heal that faith, recovering his god, all would be well again—no matter what else happened.

NK-2: I am NK-2, docked under duress equipment.

DS-1: I am DS-1, galactic representative, Station A-10.

NK-2: (appalled) Your host is… Dishon?

DS-1: Of course.

NK-2: You permitted your host to torture mine!

DS-1: This station is under siege by the enemy. There have been many ruses, many traps. I dared not—

NK-2: Why did you not send a galactic distress signal?

DS-1: (hesitating) It would have looked bad on my record.

NK-2: Do you think it will look better on your record to be charged with the deliberate harassment of stranded galactics?

DS-1: It is difficult to check every detail when under siege.

NK-2: That detail was the very validity of your mission! You denied the host of a galactic entity who had come to A-10 for sanctuary!

DS-1: The enemy is extraordinarily powerful. Had I made one mistake—

NK-2: One mistake! Your entire tenure here has been mistaken. You were a fool to permit the unobstructed landing of an enemy craft, twice a fool to withhold your distress call, three times a fool not to verify the identity of every potential host entering the premises, four times a fool to let the natives learn of Station A-10—and how could you ever have blundered so egregiously as to allow a galactic station to be worshiped as a native deity?

DS-1: We are required to blend with the population. The natives of this planet have extraordinary deistic identification. Your own host—

NK-2: Granted. My own host rationalized my directive along deistic lines. But that was an emergency situation. You are an established galactic representative trained to compensate for such tendencies. You have bungled horrendously, and have forfeited any right to your position. When I report—

DS-1 did not respond. His penumbra withdrew, severing communication. NK-2’s own penumbra permeated the temple, locating his alternate host Sargan in the torture chamber with Dishon, experiencing great pain. But the host Dishon was closed as the native walked out of that chamber and entered the hall.

Suddenly NK-2 realized why. He had talked of being a fool—but he had been a fool himself to emulate native thinking! He had openly threatened to report DS-1’s incompetence—when that entity’s whole effort for the past seventy years had been to conceal his mistakes, even though by so doing he compromised his very mission.

So DS-1 was about to cover up again—by taking the most compromising step of all. He was bringing his host to attack NK-2’s host. Galactic murder! The eunuch was far more powerful than the tortured scribe.

To make it worse, NK-2 lacked any real control over his own host. Both DS-1 and TM-R had had sufficient occasion to select and tame their hosts, but NK-2 had never established a proper liaison. Thus DS-1 had a double advantage.

Finally, NK-2’s host was trapped here in the nameless temple. The eunuch, moving purposefully, had already blocked the lone exit-hall.

Like host, like entity! NK-2 thought ruefully. Ten times a fool—to walk into such a trap before threatening the galactic representative!

He disliked the necessity intensely, but he would have to make a deal.

NK-2: You and I together—we could vanquish TM-R. Then there would be no irregularity to report—

TM-R: Most interesting! Come to the Temple of Ishtar and—

NK-2 collapsed his penumbra so rapidly it hurt. Oh, no! The enemy now controlled this ambience!

There would be no deals—even if DS-1 found the courage to stand up to the enemy. Actually the station agent was already in such trouble that even elimination of TM-R would not suffice. And despite his probable fate, NK-2 was relieved not to have to compromise himself by promising silence.

Was this what TM-R had set up next? A death battle between the only two galactic entities on the planet? Surely the result would be an enemy planet; that required no oracle to foresee!

What could he do? Deal with the enemy? NO—that would be the worst betrayal of all. Actually DS-1 had collaborated with the enemy to the extent of suppressing the message of warning; perhaps that was why the siege had been subtle. TM-R was afraid that message would still be sent, the moment DS-1 felt himself in danger of oblivion. So it was a kind of impasse. Actual collusion between galactic and enemy was almost unthinkable—but in a prolonged and indecisive encounter far from civilization, certain degradation of standards could occur. As in this case.

The host Dishon was close. He was coming up the steps leading to the interrogation room: Enkidu could hear his footsteps. NK-2 remained trapped.

First things first. He sent an urgent directive to his host, one easily intelligible in the circumstance: Danger! Hide! Defend! And the host, preoccupied with his own concerns, responded beautifully. He ran to the heavy door, pulled it closed, and slammed the wooden bar across. The other host could not enter. Not immediately.

But this was not enough. Enkidu might hold out for hours, but hardly for days. His resources, never great, were extremely low now. Only his intense deistic and romantic preoccupations maintained him in operating order despite his recent torture and fatigue. If Dishon was desperate enough to chop down the door, or even to set fire to the temple—NK-2 had to gamble. He had to summon help, though he squandered all his remaining resources. The enemy penumbra prevented any normal contacts, but he could still needle to any previously checked potential host. It would exhaust his strength to motivate such an alternate through his penumbra alone—but he had no choice, now. It was a desperation move.

Yet who was there? Sargan was bound and helpless. Dishon could balk any of the other natives of the temple. And he had not checked any outside natives, except—Unless—

If he were wrong—and that was the likelihood—NK-2 would lose his penumbra uselessly. But if he could verify…

He massed his energy and needled out, piercing the enemy ambience before TM-R could formulate a counterstroke.

And won.

It came upon Enkidu with a sudden fierce clarity: She lived! He had no tangible evidence, yet he was certain.

He looked about, dazed by the revelation. He was in the room of the water-clock, and someone was pounding on the closed door. In a fit of terror he had barred it.

Terror was irrelevant now. She lived! He had to go to her.

He unblocked the door. The slave Dishon charged in, a torture iron in his gloved hand.

Enkidu knew he should be afraid, for the eunuch obviously intended mayhem. But he had no intention of being balked now. She lived—and no man would interfere with their reunion. “Get out of my way, slave,” he snapped.

Dishon hesitated, seeing Sargan’s white cowl on the floor. The torturemaster could not know that the pale, shadowed figure standing in this room was not Sargan. But that would fool him only momentarily, for there was light enough. And the eunuch seemed to be guided by some unusual imperative.

Dishon raised the iron bar. It reminded Enkidu of the rod intended for Amyitis’ eyes, there in Gabatha’s cell. It was hot, but cooling; it had been minutes out of the brazier.

A film of holy anger passed before his eyes. No such instrument would be suffered again! He reached up and caught the end of it as Dishon struck.

Flesh sizzled, but Enkidu felt no pain. He did not let go.

Dishon fell back, astonished. Enkidu wrenched the iron from his flaccid fingers and held it aloft. He pursued the torturemaster slowly across the room while the stink of his own burning flesh irritated his nostrils.

Dishon backed into the table. The water-clock toppled and crashed with a jangle and splatter.

Enkidu dropped the hot iron. “You are less than that to me,” he said, and turned his back. He walked out.