The Carnelian Cube

Twenty-Three:

The telephone was ringing. Finch came back to consciousness like a swimmer, from fathomless black depths down, feeling toward the light. It seemed that in the few seconds between impulse and waking, he had flashed through a dozen existences, in which were mingled figures bright with color, but who had no time to speak, so rapidly did they flow past. Yet he knew them through some inner process; the young one with the sardonic smile was named Lloyd Owens, and the little man who gibbered and held up two hairs between thumb and forefinger was Orford Max, a cigarmaker, and the tall one with the gold-covered uniform would be a dream-creature bearing the name of Hyperion Weems ...

He switched on the bed light and picked up the phone. "Finch speaking."

"I have an urgent teletype message for you. Dated from Historical Project 442. It reads as follows: 'Reception of General Zil—Zilidu will be held in first watch tonight. If you wish to see event should come-at once.' Message ends. Signed Hilprecht."

"Thank you," said Finch and pulled himself out of bed, sleepily cursing the Assyrian habit of conducting important state receptions after the midnight meal, then sleeping all day. A knotted shoestring delayed him; he plucked at it impatiently and broke a fingernail with a little sharp stab of pain that brought him fully awake, the thought of Thera tearing inextinguishably at his mind. If there were only some escape into those bright corridors of dream, where problems solved themselves without an aftertaste of regret ... !

As he was changing his clothes in the directors room beneath the tent of the arrows, he could already hear a roar of many voices above, excited and triumphant The tent-flap had not been so tightly drawn as to exclude light.; tall red gleams and shadows danced across the interior, as from a burning town. There was a rush of feet and an excited babble of words outside.

He stepped out into a plaza crowded with soldiers and camp-followers, at least half of them carrying torches which reflected redly on bronze fish-scale armor and weapons, all milling around arid shouting confusedly. New heads had been added to the ghastly collection before the royal tent; Finch had to push and cry, "Way for the king's scribe!" to get through the cheerful press milling around the structure. Off at one side was the tent of worship, and from it there rose into the gaps of sound the mournful, repeated iteration of a hymn to Nergal: "Oh, Lord of Death, the sad path lieth dreary, Evil encompasseth us, and we grow weary—" Finch caught himself humming the melancholy minors of the air as he made his way past the guard into the royal tent. Within and beyond the entrance-chamber, several of the hanging walls had been looped back, so that much of the interior area was thrown together into one big hall. Torch-bearers in a double row lined the sides, and in front of them, officers and court dignitaries were conversing energetically. But the central space was clear in a long lane down to the end, where Shalmanesar sat on his throne. Finch saw him in profile as his head cocked a little to one side, and his expression sullen, he was conversing with someone just behind him. Shamsuabi, the astrologer.

Outside, the clamor increased to a climax in a terrific blatting of trumpets. A tall man next to Finch, trembling with excitement, said: "He comes!" The trumpets died, leaving behind a few voices that finished sentences into an enormous silence, and from the doorway a voice thundered:

"The triumphant general, the turtan Zilidu!"

The trumpets all blew again. The curtained doorway swung back to reveal crowd of figures in the torchlight, of whom the foremost, a smallish man, glittering in gold and dark red, fell on his face and bumped his forehead on the floor. Shalmanesar's voice said thinly: "It is permitted to rise."

The man got up slowly, and Finch could not suppress a cry as recognition and memory flooded in on him together.

The face was the face of Tiridat-Terry-Theodore; and around General Zilidu's neck, on a silver chain and clasped in a silver claw, hung the carnelian cube.

"Incarnation of Asshur!" said the general in measured tones. "In the name of Marduk and Bel, I have been victorious over the Egyptians."

He prostrated himself again, then without waiting for the royal permission, rose and began to advance slowly toward the throne, followed by the motley procession that had come with him to the door of the tent. Shalmanesar watched, chin in hand, and brooding. There were blacks in the procession, their eyes rolling, and a couple of Egyptians with the tall headdresses and short, square-cut beards of the inscriptions, their hands bound, urged along by proddings with spears in the hands of guards. Toward the middle of the group there seemed to be some momentary argument at the door of the tent and people stumbled as they were pushed.

Finch's eye was drawn to the disturbance, and as the procession swept past him, he saw the cause—a woman in flowing garments, her hands held before her, bound in that position by a small golden chain. It was—

"Thera!" he cried, and reached out a hand to detain her.

She turned toward him a woebegone face. "Sir," she said, "it k not well thought on to mock a prisoner and a woman." There was not the slightest sign of recognition in the black eyes. "But don't you-—"

The trumpets let go again, there was a chorus of shouts, and a guard barred Finch from the girl with the haft of a spear. The procession came to a halt and a bull-necked silentiary bellowed: "The Glory of Asshur speaks!"

Finch could not see the throne for the number of people who had crowded in between, but he could hear the King's voice, clear and a trifle sharp:

"The Incarnation thanks you, turtan Zilidu, for your victorious campaign. Hear the judgment of the King and let it be written: an extraordinary sacrifice of thanksgiving to the warrior-gods shall be made; and to each of the men of the triumphant army shall be distributed eleven pieces of silver in addition to his booty."

The officers behind Zilidu burst into an uproar of pleasure and clashed their weapons, but the silentiary brought them to a halt, and Shalmanesar went on:

"And now, O Zilidu, I ask, am I not King under Asshur? Is it not to me there shall be offered the first-fruits of conquest? Am I not the God-on-Earth? Is it not true, as men say, that there is among the prisoners, a certain Princess of Samaria?"

The general's words came, quite small and as though forced from him: "O King, live forever. There is such an one."

"Let her be brought forward."

Heads turned, people pushed to one side, and Finch saw the guard drag Thera away from him into the presence of Shalmanesar. "My God!" he said aloud and in English. "The flutes and dancing boys,"

Only the tall man beside him seemed to notice. He bent down to whisper: "Sssh! The turtan takes his own revenges without need of spells."

Up at the front of the tent Thera had been forced to her knees and Shalmanesar was examining her critically. Finally he said: "The wench is fair. Let her be enrolled among the King's handmaidens." He stood up and raised his hand. "The audience is finished."

There was another trumpet-toot, and Finch struggled in the rush for the door of the tent, thinking furiously. If he could stop the reconstruction before—no, probably it would be too late for that, the thing was too near its climax and Hilprecht would protest. Or somehow get the girl out of there—would she ever recognize him again after that damned psychological conditioning? What did the presence of Tiridat and the carnelian cube mean? If he could get it, would Thera—

A hand fell on his arm, and he found himself looking into the face of Tudkhalijash the Hittite, friendly under the flickering torch-glint. He would rather have seen almost anyone else.

"A notable feasting!" declared the functionary. "I have arranged that meat shall be eaten. Come and view the banquet-table."

"Perhaps later. I have an errand." "It will then be too late. The feasting begins with the rising sun, and it is near." He gripped Finch's arm and steered him through the jostling soldiers, happy over their promised wealth, toward a tent nearly as large as Shalmanesar's headquarters. As they swung round a group of spearmen who were sharing a skin of wine, Finch collided with a petticoated slave, who had something over his shoulder.

The man stumbled and the something came down with a thump.

Finch made out that it was a large cage, with poles fastened to it for carrying. Torchlight caught a yellow gleam inside and he bent close in the uncertain light to see what it was, steadying himself with a hand at one edge. A young lion with its mane just beginning to sprout, looking like an oversize but amiable tomcat.

"The tartan's present to the King, Lord," said one of the slaves.

Finch turned to answer, and in that moment there was the flash of a yellow claw, one-third seen. He yelped with pain, drawing away a hand with a three-inch slash from which the blood welled darkly.

"Let the beast be taken by Lilu!" he cried, with thoughts of blood-poisoning floating through his mind.

"Come," said Tudkhalijash, "and let us seek the King's magician."

"Nay, rather will I get my amulet against lions," said Finch, trying in one movement to get free of the detaining grasp and to wrap the injured member in a fold of his skirt-like garment. There would be iodine in the director's room.

The too-friendly chamberlain clung to his arm. "Yet this is a great good luck, Nintudunadin, To be touched by the King's own lion is a portent of some notable event. You should seek a soothsayer."

He could not get rid of the man, and the torn hand throbbed as he made his way through the crowd in the plaza. In desperation Finch said: "Perhaps after all it would be better to have Burnipal the magician. Could he come to me in my tent?"

They were at the door. "I will bring him faster than eagles," said the Hittite and was gone.

Finch fumbled, won the ladder. Under a decent electric light the gash was less serious than he had imagined at first, but it was an unhandy business getting a bandage on it, and then he had to change robes.

As he swung the trap-door into position at the top of the ladder, he heard a cough, then a voice, somewhere just outside the tent. "Speak without fear, slave, and show what is in your liver."

It was Zilidu's voice, Tiridat's; he could not miss it. Finch softly lowered the trap-door into place and listened. Another voice answered.

"Lord I must tell you a thing. It nearly concerns the Glory of Asshur."

The other voice was also familiar, though for the moment Finch could not place it.

"Tell it then to the King or his counsellors, whose servant am I. You ox! Do you think to trap me, so that the Lady Ishtaramat may carry tales to the King?"

"Nay, Lord, but hear me—" The other voice, he had it now; Nabuzaradan the eunuch. "There are those who serve the family of the Old King because they must, yet would rather serve his ways, even in the hands of those who are not his blood, because the ways they love. It is the matter concerning the Samarian Princess, Lord."

There was a momentary silence outside the tent. Then Zilidu said in a changed and slightly gruffer voice: "What of her, then?"

"There has been a prophecy made before the King, and the world knows it, that whoso is to possess this city of Samaria must first possess its princess."

"I have heard—"

The voice cut off as there was a clink of something metallic at the other side of the tent and a high-pitched voice called: "Burnipal the King's magician would enter unto Nintudunadin the scribe."

Finch hung paralyzed for a second as behind the tent where the colloquy had gone on, there was the sound of a quick step, then silence. At the other side the flap was pulled back to admit a jolly, clean-shaven man with a slave who bore a tripod and various other properties, and a censer in which burned a fire of camel-dung.

"I come to bless and for the removal of evils," said the wizard sententiously. "Lie down. Let your soul be at peace. Let the tripod be set up, the frankincense ignited, and let the bowl be filled with the purest water."

He waved his hands gracefully to and fro, muttering prayers in the archaic language of the hymns, while the slave followed his instructions and Finch composed himself with as much patience as he could muster. Burnipal dipped a branch of tamarish in the water and sprinkled him with it as the heavy odor of the incense rose, chanting slowly:

The voice was monotonous, there was nothing to do but lie there and take it, and Finch had had only about three hours' sleep. In spite of the fact that out in the camp the preparations for the victory feast were going forward energetically, he drowsed, dozed, and then drifted off completely.

He snapped awake with the sound of the shout that had roused him still ringing in his ears. There was pale daylight through the flap of the tent. The magician had gone, leaving behind nothing but the odor of his frankincense, and from somewhere in the distance, the shout that had roused him was repeated—a cry of distress.

Finch got up, feeling every one of his years, and went to the door of the tent to peer out. The plaza was deserted, with the yellow sun of mid-morning lying across it and the walls of Samaria shining beyond. As he watched, an arrow flashed suddenly across his field of vision from left to right. There was a shout and three or four guards, heads down, shields high and spears at the ready, came dashing from the royal tent in the direction from which the missile had come.

One of them whooped, down some alley of tents that made him invisible. A yelp of agony answered, and then the guards came back, laughing and talking, one of them with a reddened spear. Finch thought a trifle bitterly about "spending personnel" and inched cautiously out into the daylight to see what was wrong, prepared to duck back and down through the trap-door. One of the guards turned and eyed him, but incuriously, without any gesture either friendly or the reverse. He judged it was safe to follow.

As he drew nearer the big tent there became audible something that sounded from the distance like choral singing, but which on nearer acquaintance resolved itself into the long, monotonous keening of a number of women- The door of the royal tent was looped back and no one on guard. Finch pushed on toward the central apartment, thinking that Shalmanesar IV, King of Assyria, Babylonia, and the lands beyond the desert, had probably met his historical fate.

A moment later, he was sure. In a room crawling with eunuchs, slaves and women, all wailing to the limits of their voices, he found the king. Shalmanesar was lying on the carpet, stripped, with a dozen great claw-gashes in Ins body, and the skull bitten through. Zilidu's present.

"Where did this happen?" Finch demanded. "Where is the court?"

"In the King's bed-chamber, Lord."

Finch pushed his way through the crowd to the place, to find the door barred by a pair of soldiers.

"An order has been given that none enter," said one.

"Fool! I am the secretary, Nintudunadin."

He pushed between their hesitant spears. In the king's bed-chamber stood the lion's cage with its door open. On the far side was the royal bed; between cage and bed there were spots of blood on the carpet, and a man doing a curious thing. He had an odd-shaped hammer and was driving little nails through each spot of blood into the carpet. As the man's head came up Finch recalled that when you had murdered a man this little precaution was obligatory, to "nail down his ghost."

The nailer was General Zilidu.

He set down the hammer, then turned to face Finch and clapped his hands. Finch turned—just in time to see a new line of soldiers at the door, not the men of the royal guard, but infantry with sunburnt faces and dirty equipment, men from Zilidu's own Army of the South.

"Excellent scribe," said Zilidu, "one would think you cared little for my presence."

Finch breathed hard, then got himself under control. It was absurd of him to have been frightened, though a hand of ice was clutching his heart at the thought of Thera.

"It's all right," he said, "the show is over," and realized he had spoken in English.

Zilidu linked his brows. "If that is a foreign spell," he said, "I warn you that there is a new wizard, who will make it recoil on your own head."

Finch said: "O General, I wished to say only that the appointed time has come. I should be taken to the place of rendezvous."

Zilidu laughed shortly. "Slave! You shall go to the place of rendezvous in good truth. As for that Ulula, who tried to play a man of iron, though he was only a reed painted in its resemblance, your rendezvous shall be with him."

An officer shouldered his way through the line of spearmen. "Oh King, live forever," he said. "The old witch is dead."

"Let there be a thanksgiving proclaimed that now Ishtaramat, the evil genius of Asshur, is no more. As for this carrion—" he gestured toward Finch "—let him be placed with those who are to be flayed before Bel."

Pinwheels seemed to revolve before Finch's eyes. "King—King (what had been the name the fellow took?) Sargon, I say, release me! You know that this is a make-believe and a dream, and that in the real world I command you and the other actors."

The new king merely smiled. "The gods have taken *he wits of this poor animal. The other world of which you speak is only in your own vain imaginings, and this is the real world, in which I am verily lord over you and all other men." He gestured. "Take him!"

"Wait!" cried Finch. "In the name of the gods, as a condemned man, I have the right to one request before "Nergal."

"That is most true."

"Then I wish the carnelian cube."

"This?" said the new King, with an expression of surprise. With a gesture he stripped off the tiny ornament. "Take it, then, living, to return it dead. For the world is too large for any to refashion it according to the fancy of his liver and those who try, as you, come to grief and strong sorrow, and they wish they had never begun, and yet what is done cannot be undone. Dream well, then."

Finch went quietly with the soldiers who took either arm. The carnelian cube was slippery in his fingers; it had been warmed by his hand.

By God, he'd dream himself into an ideal world yet!