Ascents of Wonder, page 17
“At what did you employ yourself the past sossus, that you are so weary?” I asked. Shubad frowned at my impertinence.
But Oannes answered straightforwardly: “I slept.”
Shubad looked at me then, with a frown of puzzlement. It was believed by the clergy that Oannes died and was reborn every sixty years. He has not stirred from his temple since that time, nor has his voice been . heard in the temple of Nannar till this day. I longed to put Shubad at ease, but I could not. It had been too long since we were children together, and tonight she would not sleep with me as we slept together as children. Nor would she sleep with any other citizen of Surech, as when she was a mere courtesan of the Moon God. From now on she would lie with Oannes, king of Surech, and god—whether he protest or not—of the people.
Later that day, the college of priestesses, led by Shubad for the first time since the death of her mother, performed welcoming ceremonies in the temple of Nannar near the base of the ziggurat, Oannes did not consent to appear. He stood on a balcony of the palace, looking out over the city he had founded.
“The canals seem in good order,” he said, watching the barges and small boats moving along them.
“Many new canals and ditches have been added,” I said.
“And the special bricks?”
“They are ready in the number you requested, and more. Production began last year.” I directed his eyes to a warehouse by the main trunk canal just outside the city. Workmen were even now adding to them.
“Tomorrow I will show them how to build the special tiers of brick that will enable me to work my magic. Give the following message to the laborers.”
Whereupon he dictated certain instructions preparatory to this work. When he had finished speaking, he went into an inner chamber where he divested himself of his garments and bathed.
While close to his body, I saw that while he is very like a man, he is strangely different. The proportions of limb and trunk, the number and position of joints, are at variance with those of mankind. His body is angular, as though rough-hewn from limestone, with edges and protrusions in unexpected places. His organ of generation is large and seems curiously malformed, spiraling slightly, like that of a bull about to mount a cow. His walk, too, is curious, having about it weariness like that of a man carrying a great weight. The eyes of Oannes are like polished obsidian, and they are knowing, those eyes, of secrets beyond the common run of men.
“What is this?” asked Oannes. He spoke of the stele in a corner of the room.
“This monument is carved in the likeness of your temple,” I explained.
“What is written on it?” he asked, not bothering to examine the writing himself.
“It says, ‘When the temple of the god Oannes came from the—’ ”
“Still they deify me against my wishes! Where does it say I am a god?”
“Here, Lord,” I said, pointing. “The star-symbol is also the god-symbol.”
“I see now. Had you not already possessed this cumbersome writing of scratches in clay, with its hundreds of signs having a multiplicity of meanings, I would have given you a better one. But no matter. Erase the god-symbol. Smash it out.”
“On the morrow or now?”
“Tomorrow will be sufficient.”
Oannes then put on the royal robes, and at this time a servant brought food. Oannes ate ravenously. When he had finished, he drank a large quantity of water, but did not touch the wine.
“How does the council govern?” he asked at length. “Wisely?”
“Wisely, but slowly and cumbersomely. A king could do it better unchecked by a council.”
“A tyrant could do it even more efficiently,” he said.
“Would you like more food?”
“This is sufficient for now.”
I waited for his command, but he neither commanded me nor dismissed me. Because I had been curious a long time, I asked him a question.
“Tell me, Lord, how like my father am I?”
“Ah, the other scribe. Yesterday—” But he stopped speaking. Then he said, “I had forgotten. It seems like yesterday. His name was Umuz.”
“Umuz—my grandfather.”
“There was a small child scurrying at his feet, playing with a ball of clay and scratching it with a twig.”
“My father,” I said.
Did the lips of Oannes curve slightly in imitation of a smile? He tells me his lips are not made for human emotions, but perhaps only the chief priestess knows whether that is really true.
Then he asked me to procure some fiat clay slabs for him to draw on, and I was dismissed.
On the morrow, Oannes rose with the sun and began directing the workers. Under him were several supervisors, who had learned the art of architecture in the school Oannes had founded generations ago. They oversaw the workers who were laying the special bricks on the ziggurat.
These bricks, designed by Oannes himself, were made with forked holes through them, but some had holes of other shapes. It was necessary to mold them in two pieces and cement them together with bitumen. The reason for this was not understood, but it was thought to be some arcane magic the Apkallu would eventually employ for the good of the city. Myself he kept at hand to make notes and take orders for supplies.
That night I obtained a sample of Oannes’ dung, and brought it, along with the dust washed from his body, to a sorceress, who employed it in a spell which would regain for me the love of Shubad.
The Second Tablet
The days passed under the beneficence of the Sun God Utu, and the nights passed under the wings of Nannar. Oannes worked on, ascending the ziggurat daily to direct the workers at their labor. The seasons changed, and the Euphrates’ flood, tempered by means of canals and dams Oannes had showed us how to build long ago, brought new fertility to our fields. This boon of nature had been assured by Oannes’ acts of ritual intercourse with the sacred courtesans in Nannar’s temple. As usual, he continued to cohabit with Shubad, the royal consort. Since the rituals in the temple of Nannar were not enough, the priests assembled the statues of the gods in council in one room of the temple. Here they conferred their divine powers upon the god Enlil, as they had when they made him their chief in return for his vanquishing Tiamat, the Chaos-Goddess. Oannes declined to be present to represent Ea in ratifying the favorable destiny of Surech, but his refusal was not deemed to have invalidated the ritual, since it had been done in the present fashion since the founding of the city. Nevertheless, the priests muttered.
Another ritual was held which, curiously enough, Oannes deigned to attend, and even to participate in. It was the ritual performed after the annual flooding of the Euphrates, when the kettledrum of the temple is covered, reminding us of the day when the Great Flood destroyed the world and the kettledrums of Heaven sounded. An unblemished black bull was sacrificed in a secret chamber whose floor had been purified with water. Accordingly, the rite of the washing of the mouth was performed on the bull. Then Oannes took a reed tube which he inserted into the bull’s left ear, and through the tube he spoke the promise of the gods never again to destroy the world by water.
One night I sat in a tavern off the square near the temple, drinking with friends after enjoying the company of the temple prostitutes. This resulted in some taunting by the common prostitutes at the tavern, who competed to some degree with the sacred courtesans. But as Sharru said, intercourse with the handmaidens of the gods was the most pleasant of the duties imposed on us by Heaven, and it would not do to shirk. He propitiated the tavern girls with the promise of future patronage. Sharru was an officer in the army, and Apishtem was his adjutant.
“The moon is high,” remarked Sharru, gesturing. Next to him, Apishtem laughed. Through the open window I could see the palace, where Oannes and Shubad would be making love for the good of the city-state because it was expected by the people, regarded as essential by the priests, and perhaps even because the two of them enjoyed it.
“Face it, Naboni,” said Apishtem. “We’re not good enough for her any more.” He sipped the wine from our jar with his straw—noisily.
“Yes,” echoed Sharru. “It is indeed ironic. She whose favors we once purchased in the temple is now the divine paramour.”
I ceased sipping from my straw. “He is not divine,” I said.
“Nonsense,” said Apishtem. “He’s a god, all right. He’s in disguise, testing us.”
Sharru elbowed his companion. “Or fattening us for the kill.” They chuckled.
I did not laugh. “He eats and defecates like any man. He has a stinking piss-pot in his room like any other.”
“If Oannes is not a god, then explain what manner of being he is, O learned scribe!” challenged Sharru. “What is it that looks like a man yet does wonderous things, and which comes from the sea?”
Apishtem grinned through a wine-wet beard. “A fine riddle for the intelligent ones among us,” He did not try to answer it.
I said, “He is what he says he is. A being very like us, not a god. And he comes from the sky.”
Apishtem frowned. “Let us not mutter absurdities, even though we are not completely sober.”
“Ask the masons if the dark-skinned thing you worship does not sweat under the sun as he lays bricks with them atop the ziggurat,” I said hotly. “Do gods labor with men? The gods begrudge us every grain of barley, every strand of cloth, every breath we take. We are hemmed in with rituals and sacrifices to blind, uncaring gods, yet we dare not cease our groveling lest we perish, lest the desert swallow us up. But Oannes disdains our prayers. He even refuses to perform his ritual duties. Is this the action of a god or a god’s son?”
Apishtem scratched his ear and said solemnly, “Let us not be too dogmatic, Naboni. Perhaps he is a demigod. After all, it is said that the hero Gilgamesh was two-thirds god and one-third man.”
“And you are completely a fool!” I cried, throwing down my drinking-reed and rising to my feet. The other patrons, engaged in drink or amorous sport, took scarce notice.
“Sit down, scribe,” said Sharru wearily. “If Oannes possesses many of the principal attributes of humankind, perhaps he also possesses some of its weaknesses.” Whereupon his eyes narrowed and in a lower voice he asked, “Answer me this question: Why does he work on the ziggurat like a common laborer?”
“He does do that,” I said, “but in great part he directs the work. He says he must follow carefully the diagrams He makes.”
“What kind of diagrams?”
“Like this,” I said, and drew in the moisture of the table top a series of lines forking off in many directions.
Sharru studied it a moment and said, “It resembles a tree with many ^branches, or perhaps a system of roots.”
Apjshtem scratched his head. “It could also be a plan for roads or canals. Then again, it might not be. It is beyond my comprehension. Do you know what it means?”
“Perhaps,” I said. “I believe it to be a chart representing the drainage facilities of the ziggurat.”
Sharru brightened, “Ah, the weeper holes?”
“No. This system does not drain off absorbed moisture. It is a separate system.”
“Perhaps an irrigation system for the garden balconies? To be supplied by a bucket lift?”
“No. Not that either ”
“It is some kind of magic,” said Apishtem. “After all, Oannes came from the sea, so his magic must be water-magic.”
“Why don’t you ask Oannes about it?” asked Sharru. “And at the same time, ask him the purpose of his ziggurat on which we have labored for three generations. You might also ask him why he bothers with us at all. Surely not even the charms of the high priestess are enough to lure a god to earth.”
It seemed reasonable at the time. I banged my fist on the table. “I’ll ask him,” I said.
In the morning, when I remembered my rash vow, a sense of dread overcame me. I put the idea away, for it was a foolish one, an impertinent, born of drunkenness, I was sure my comrades would not hold me to it.
That day I accompanied Oannes to consult the astrologer-priests, who observed the heavens from a platform atop the temple of the Moon God. We met the chief astrologer-priest, Enlilizzu, in a room where the star records were kept. As we entered, he was sitting in his chair, bleary-eyed after a night of watching, dictating to a scribe sitting on the floor. On seeing Oannes, he rose and made obeisance, touching his sign of office, a gold pendant with Inanna’s name and the sign of Leo.
“Welcome, Son of Ea!” he cried. “I have heeded the words of Nakabit, watcher of the skies before me, and of his father before him. You will find the records all in order.”
“Show me the records,” said Oannes.
The astrologer bowed deeply, and snapped his fingers at the scribe, who had fallen to his face before Oannes. They led us to a table where clay tablets were arranged for our inspection.
We spent only a short while with the astrologer.
Oannes was mostly interested in the motions of the star Akrabu, in the sign of the Scorpion-Man, but he also had the astrologer bring out even older records of the sky, dating back many generations, even to the founding of the city.
Hearing from Enlilizzu how the star-gods had progressed in the heavens, Oannes made a low, rapid clicking noise in his throat, which I had never heard before. And his eyes seemed brighter.
“I am pleased,” he told the astrologer. “You shall be rewarded.”
“The instruments you have given us are wondrous indeed,” said Enlilizzu, bowing.
The remainder of the day Oannes spent directing the workmen. The unfinished side of the ziggurat was beginning to fill up nicely with the special bricks, but it seemed to me that the Apkallu was pressing the men to labor harder and harder, as though there were some god-ordered task he must perform before an appointed time.
The Third Tablet
At length I contrived to encounter Shubad in the temple of Nannar. Since she was the daughter of the high priestess and had been chosen as royal consort strictly according to custom, it was unthinkable that she should return to the temple to sell her favors with the common temple prostitutes. And she was not here for that now. I saw that she was tending the Shrine of the Voice, and as I walked toward her she looked up from arranging the offerings.
“Naboni,” she whispered.
From somewhere in the temple came the sound of a harp. It played the first notes of a devotional hymn before I answered.
“I come to pay homage to the Voice of Oannes,” I said, nodding at the small, faceless idol of dark metal. It was rectangular, standing upon its small end, and had no limbs or features or human form. The only marking was a circular area of a different texture near the top, as though a featureless face had been limned there. From this place came the voice of Oannes, by which we understood that Oannes infrequently spoke through the idol when he was actually within his temple in the marsh.
“Have you an offering?” she asked softly.
“Only myself,” I said. “Is it within your power to accept this poor offering?”
I saw that this disturbed her, for she lowered her eyes. “I may not,” she said. .
“Then may I ask a question?”
“That is not forbidden.”
I moved a step closer, but no farther.
“What does Oannes claim to be?”
Her eyes lifted swiftly. “He is a god,” she said firmly.
“He does not claim to be a god.” .
“He is testing us.”
“For what does he test us?”
“That is not for us to ask.” She backed away, .placing her hand on the altar where the idol sat.
“Does Oannes say that we must not question?”
She did not answer. She did not draw away as I moved close to her, but lowered her head.
She said, “He does not say we must not ask. That is part of the test—that we must not need to be told that we must not ask.”
“Then that cannot be the will of Oannes. For the Apkallu does not hesitate to command us otherwise, even myself.”
I lifted her chin gently, and though her eyes would not touch mine, I saw tears there.
“Why?” I asked. When she did not reply, I asked, “Why has he built the temple-mountain? Why has he come among us?”
She shook her head. “I do not know.”
“Does he not speak with you?” She was silent. “Does he not exchange pleasantries, as I once did with you?”
“Do not ask me.”
“Has he forbidden you to speak?”
She did not answer.
“Does he love you as much as I loved you? As much as I still could love you?”
She removed my hand from her face and drew away. She wiped her eyes with the hem of her gown. “You must not trouble me, Naboni. I did not ask to be high priestess. But I am the first wife of the god now—”
“There is only one god now? Once there were many.”
Her eyes flashed angrily. “Oannes represents them all now, all of the Council of Seven Who Determine Destiny.”
Something in my throat seemed to rend my words as I uttered them. “And what else docs he represent? I can tell you. I have seen him naked.”
Her face became that of someone else. “You blaspheme! Leave here or I shall have you thrown out.” She whirled to face the altar, her hands balled into fists.
“Once you sold your body to the farmers and tradesmen in this very temple, and yes, even to this humble scribe. Now that you are the consort of Oannes you shrink from my touch. Why? You know he is no god. Even the priests mutter.”
I expected her anger to rise again, but it was in a small voice that she said, “I did not ask to go to him, but I must not refuse.”
“Then go to him now,” I said in a harsh, low voice. “Let him comfort you. Let him caress you while the Light of Utu sinks into the underworld. Let him bleed love into you while Nannar takes wing, as I once did.” The words came from my lips anointed with bile. I stepped toward the doorway of the shrine, then turned.
“Naboni, I do not love him. It is—”
