Anthony, Piers & Frances Hall - Pretender

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Pretender
by
Piers Anthony and Frances Hall
CHAPTER 1
The craft was in trouble. It might have been an enemy nimbus-mine, for this was a marginal zone.
More likely it was random failure somewhere in this old unit. NK-2 was no mechanic. It would be
necessary to dock for repairs.
He sent his host-animal for the local planet chart. In a moment the configuration of suns and
worlds spread across the host's visual center.
Few planets in this region were habitable, fewer were actually occupied, and none were civilized.
Only three supported galactic enclaves, and one of these was marked with the warner signifying
probable enemy penetration. The chart was not new, but NK-2 doubted the situation had changed
significantly in the interim.
His most expeditious docking was on the warned planet. His trajectory suited the other two poorly,
and he hardly wanted to risk them while the reliability of his craft was in question. In this case
it was better to chance confrontation with the enemy, unpleasant as the prospect was. He was no
combatant, but he could exercise suitable caution.
NK-2 had the host examine a detail chart of the chosen world. The natives were at the early-
cluster stage, and their technology was unevenly distributed and as yet far from the level
required for galactic intercourse. Station A-10 was located at the leading cultural and economic
center, which was situated beside a river not far from a mountainous region somewhat removed from
the planet's sizable oceans.
All he had to do was dock his craft, send out a distress signal, and wait at the station until a
repair vehicle responded. The local representative was DS-1, and of course he would be competent
to handle this case. That was the purpose of such enclaves.
But if the enemy had truly infiltrated, there could be complexities. Ordinarily he would contact
Station A-10 prior to docking--but the enemy would be certain to intercept such a message. He
would have to do it blind; that was the lesser risk. And he would signal for assistance while
still in space, using a tight beam that avoided the planet.
Too bad he couldn't wait it out in space. But a derelict ship was bad policy anywhere, and there
were supplies to maintain his host for only a fraction of the necessary time. The animal would
starve--and of course NK-2 would die with it. That was another reason why galactic stations were
maintained on primitive planets. Standby assistance was never far away.
* * *
The docking was routine. The repulser shield discouraged the local fauna so that no natives poked
about the craft, and neither the animate nor the inanimate portions of the team suffered
disfunction. He was within manageable range of the enclave. Dockings were never made too near
native camps, of course; even the shield could not abate too drastic an intrusion!
NK-2 sent his host about the craft, putting it in order for his absence. He still did not dare
signal Station A-10 for fear of enemy monitoring, but his host could easily travel the distance.
According to the subnotes on the chart, the natives were four-limbed, fixed-form sapients of large
size, possessing tamed animals one of which resembled his host. With just a touch of repulse to
abate curiosity, he should be able to enter the city and connect with the station without even
advertising his presence to either natives or enemy. Then it would be all over except the tedious
wait.
Perhaps he could use the time to indulge in research relating to the motivations of incipient
civilization. Any primitive society offered rich opportunities for such studies, and NK-2 had upon
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occasion been tempted to enter some other field than radiation prospecting. But he lacked the
training for alien ethnology.
The host had completed its chores. NK-2 knew he should review the distress-docking checklist, but
he was impatient with the routine. Nothing would bother the craft, and he could return if
necessary after establishing himself at Station A-10.
He took the host outside after setting the lock to reseal automatically. They paused a few paces
away to look back. There was no sign of the craft. That meant the repulser was operative; the
host's gaze avoided that region even when directed specifically. Excellent. They resumed
ambulation toward the station.
The light of the local sun was fierce and the atmosphere was dry and hot, causing his host
discomfort. The terrain was not difficult, however. It had been so long since NK-2 had been on an
alien world that this was a refreshing experience. Were his host attuned to the specific
environment, he might have romped.
The animal, far from romping, was tiring. NK-2 allowed it to rest. There were so many trifling
differences between habitable worlds that no single creature could adjust readily to them all. But
the pause did not seem to help; when he started off again, the animal stumbled. Something was
ailing the creature.
Then he remembered: he had failed to inoculate his host against local maladies before leaving the
protection of the craft. This was an elementary precaution the checklist would have covered--
elementary but essential. Now the unfortunate creature had been contaminated, and NK-2 himself was
in trouble.
There was no point returning to the craft, for it lacked curative facilities. He would have to
proceed to the station. His host would probably perish, but NK-2 could transfer to a native host.
An unpleasant necessity, but the result of his own oversight. He was sorry the innocent animal had
to suffer. In future he would be more careful about such details; there was more involved than
personal convenience.
Now the host's strength was failing rapidly, as the virulent microorganisms of this wilderness
raged through its system unchecked. The animal became confused, and would have lost the way had NK-
2 not exerted firm control. This was going to be closer than he had supposed; there was now no
possibility of returning to his craft. The Station was much closer, but any delay in locating it
could have serious consequence.
Then disaster. There was no native settlement in the charted location--only a large mound covered
with scattered blocks of stone. A city had once stood here, certainly--but it had been destroyed
utterly.
NK-2 drove his host to the exact coordinate of Station A-10. There was nothing but rubble.
The host collapsed and lay in the bright heat. It was dying--and there was no alternate host
available.
CHAPTER 2
The boy came from a peasant hut on the Tigris River, at the fringe of the mighty Babylonian
Empire. This region was increasingly menaced by the barbarian Medes. Yet what was that to his
family, already so deeply in debt to the temple of Marduk that the charioteers could hardly bring
more sorrow!
He was six. He had been born in the year Nebuchadnezzar died, and already he understood
deprivation and hunger. His father labored all day in the hot barley fields, but lacked barley for
his own bread. What was there for a boy to do?
He approached the great mound with a certain expectant thrill, though he had been here many times
before. It was forbidden; that was why he came. This was the ruin of Nineveh, capital of the
ancient Assyrian Empire. Well he knew its savage history, for it was still told by the old men of
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the region, some of whom claimed to have been there at its destruction.
Where was the god Asshur now, who had governed the world from this spot? Where was his power, his
terror, his rows on rows of bloodstained stakes, the ghastly glee of his conquests?
Only these stones remained, the mighty rubble of a god.
The boy was looking for a god, or at least a _shedu,_ an invisible winged bull to stay by his side
and protect him from harm. And to protect his family too, lest he be forced to spend the rest of
his life working off his father's debt to the temple.
Something caught his eye. He would have missed it, had it not been directly in his path, for there
was something extremely inconspicuous about it and a bit repulsive. It was a dead animal. Not a
cat, exactly, for it seemed to have little hands; and not quite dead, for it shuddered. What was
it doing here?
He squatted before it, perversely fascinated. He had schooled himself to look for _shedu_ which
were always where one never looked. This funny cat was surely hard to look at; could it be a
_shedu?_ But it had no wings, and it was dying. It could hardly be a powerful guardian spirit.
Unless. A god had ruled this city and the world, and that god had perished. Why could not a
_shedu_ perish too? Perhaps this was a strong spirit who had strayed into the forbidden region and
been smashed by the ghost of Asshur, so that it lost its wings and became visible. If it were
taken away from here, would it regain its strength? Would it then be a faithful _shedu?_
He reached out to poke it, hesitated, then jeered himself into doing it. A dying animal--what harm
could it do him?
His finger seemed to tingle as it touched the odd fur. _Be my host!_
Startled, the boy drew back. But he was not hurt, and he had heard something. Something very like
a _shedu,_ maybe. It had not been unfriendly.
Cautiously, he touched the cat again.
_Be my host!_
This time he maintained contact. It was not a voice, exactly, yet it spoke. A soundless voice. The
voice a spirit might have.
"Are you my _shedu?"_ he asked. "Will you stay beside me wherever I go and grant my wishes?"
But the voiceless voice just kept begging him to be his host, whatever that meant.
"Oh, all right," he said impatiently. "But you have to get money for my father to pay off the debt
to the temple, and give me the magic power to read, so that I'll be better than all the other boys
in the village, and make me a fancy noble when I grow up, and, and--"
But the _shedu_ didn't seem to be paying attention. Magic creatures were funny that way. You had
to learn how to handle them.
* * *
It was difficult, for this was no tame thoroughbred host, but a wild alien one, untrained in the
prerogatives of hosting. NK-2 had made the transfer from necessity, not choice, for his original
host was completely out of commission. The exchange had exhausted him; he required an extended
period of rest while he adapted to the alien configuration and restored his resources. Only his
umbra had survived the process; it would take time to develop a new penumbra. Meanwhile,
perceiving through these strange senses was difficult; thinking with this unfamiliar brain was
worse; and actual control of the unruly host was out of the question. The best he could do now was
imprint a single fundamental urge: the need to locate Station A-10 before the relief craft
arrived. Then hang on, letting the host take it from there.
* * *
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Aten. He had to find Aten. Before something happened. Before a long time passed, because that was
_when_ it would happen. Wherever Aten was.
Enkidu shook his head. He could make no sense of it, but that didn't much matter. He had a
mission.
He also had a _shedu,_ he thought. It hadn't done much. It was just a kind of presence that
resembled the grumbled warnings of a cautious old man: don't do this, don't do that, it might lead
to trouble somehow. It was annoying to an adventurous boy, and he tried to ignore it.
One day the priest of Marduk came to his house. The local temple was small, since Marduk himself
resided far away in Babylon. But the debt was great--and there was no way to pay.
Enkidu looked at the seamed face and weary stoop of his father as though for the first time. The
priest was making some obscure threat, and his father was appalled and his mother terrified, and
his younger sisters were beginning to whine because of the general tension, but still there was no
way to pay. If only he had found a decent _shedu,_ he could order it to lift up that mean priest
and cast him headfirst into the Tigris!
"Choose," the priest said relentlessly. "Choose--or I will choose for you!" And he looked
meaningfully toward the two little girls.
Then the _shedu_ spoke. Enkidu, transfixed by his parents' hopelessness and fear, yielded to the
nagging urge and echoed its sentiment:
"Take _me!_ I am young, I can work, I can learn. I am worth more than both my sisters--more than
all the shekels you have loaned my father!"
Surprised, the priest studied him. Enkidu was almost paralyzed with fear, but the _shedu_ forced
him to hold up his chin and stare boldly back.
"Perhaps you are," the priest agreed, smiling.
* * *
NK-2 was exhausted again. He had been recovering nicely, considering the liabilities of his
residence in an alien host, and had been ready to work on his penumbra. He had formulated a long-
range three-fold thrust, to execute once his full strength had been recovered. First: strengthen
the host's incentive to find Station A-10, so that this became the most important single objective
in life. Second: free the host from his circumstantial and intellectual limitations, so that he
could indulge that incentive. Third: arrange to travel to Babylon, the most likely present
location of A-10.
The first was merely a matter of judicious and continued reinforcement, to be peaked about a year
before the repair craft was due. Opportunity for the second had come unexpectedly, before he was
ready for it; he had had to exert control for a key moment though it devastated his scant present
resources. But it was done: he had transferred the boy from his backplanet habitat to a major
artery of this society's power structure: the temple of Marduk.
By this world's time-scale, he had seventeen years in which to accomplish the third. Considering
the difficulties entailed, it was an adequate but hardly generous amount. He should be able to
train the boy to a certain extent while that boy grew into manhood. Though hardly comfortable in
this wild host, he was secure. He would not have to change hosts again. This was fortunate,
because he doubted he would be able to manage a second such change if he had to. The near-death of
his original host before he departed, the adverse conditions of his transfer, the backwardness of
this culture--all these reduced both his capacities and his opportunities drastically. It would be
long before he recovered his full powers, especially if he had to exercise control too often. What
was routine for a conditioned host was a feat of incredible stamina for a wild one.
He knew now what had happened to the city in which A-10 had been located. Nineveh had been the
capital--but Assyria had been overthrown by its subject city Babylon in conjunction with the
fierce Medes. This host had been born fifty years after that destruction. NK-2's charts had been
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about a century old--quaint as it was to date a galactic chart in terms of the revolutions of one
inconsequential planet--so had not reflected the local change. Now the effective capital of the
world was Babylon.
He would have to rest for a few months, as this recent effort following so close after the
transfer had brought him to his dimmest point ever. The host would have to look out for himself
until NK-2 was ready and able to make further suggestions.
* * *
The temple was strange to him, but the priests were not unkind. They deloused him and oiled him
and gave him a bed in one of the many alcoves surrounding the main temple. They fed him regularly,
so that he soon grew alert and sleek, and they did not brand him until he tried to run away.
This was Calah, actually quite close to his home village as distances went within the empire. In
time his homesickness wore off, but his discontent continued and grew. He did not like the
enforced discipline of the temple!
At first he was put to work as a kitchen slave, carrying the great masses of bread from the oven,
cleaning the floors and even learning to milk one of the temple goats. But his active mind often
strayed from such tasks. He did not always remember to remove the bread from the oven in time, so
that it burned and tasted bad. When he brought in a pail of milk with fresh droppings in it the
priest in charge became very upset for no good reason. But he did not beat Enkidu, strangely.
Instead, the priest talked with him, inquiring the reason for his carelessness. This was not the
one who had taken him slave in payment for his father's debt, but a gentler man. Still, Enkidu did
not dare tell him about his odd _shedu,_ that had come to him amid the ruins of Nineveh and bade
him find Aten. Aten was surely a rival god, and that could anger Marduk. But he did confess his
ambitions: to have fine clothing and to be a literate man, set apart from the common peasants.
Intrigued, the priest brought a tablet bearing lines of sharp-pointed imprints. "Like this?" he
asked softly, and Enkidu nodded, abashed at his own presumption, for not even his father could
read. But the _shedu_ was nagging him again, suggesting his answers. The kind priest questioned
him further, then led him to another part of the temple, one Enkidu had not seen before. Here clay
block-benches were fixed to the floor, and beside each was a large earthenware receptacle. Boys of
various ages sat on these benches and worked busily on soft clay tablets before them, while a
schoolmaster stood in front and barked directions.
"These boys are learning to be scribes," the priest explained. "It is a very difficult trade,
Enkidu, and many years will pass before they graduate. Some will fail to learn well enough and
will be sent home in disgrace. Tupshar here is a hard master. But he will treat you fairly if you
try hard. Do you wish to undertake this training?"
Enkidu stared wide-eyed at the jars containing clay, at the little water-troughs set in the
benches, at the busy styli. He saw a boy sharply reprimanded for an inconspicuous error. Another
snickered, and was rapped smartly on the arm. He heard loud instructions: words read by the
master, that the boys struggled to record just so in their soft tablets, carefully imprinting the
little wedge marks on the surface. He saw the sweat gleaming in the faces of many, though they
were only sitting still and the room was cool, and he knew that they were tense and afraid of
Tupshar. He had had no idea that literacy was so difficult to achieve.
The _shedu_ prompted him. "Yes."
"Then remain here," the priest said quietly. "I will inquire again in a few days. It is a
demanding school, and none of these boys is slave."
Indeed they were not. Wealthy men had sent their sons to this school attached to the temple of
Marduk at Calah, and these boys did not fancy the equal company of a branded slave. But Tupshar
tolerated no inequalities; all felt the weight of his discipline alike.
Enkidu realized that his _shedu_ was on the job. He had asked it to repay his family's debt, and
the debt had been paid. He had asked it to make him literate--and here he was, in training to be a
scribe. He had supposed the gifts would be granted outright, if at all; now he understood that
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they were given only when he was willing to work for them. The _shedu_ merely showed the way. In
time it would make him free and rich, also--and then he would go in search of the god Aten.
Beside this dream, the taunts of his fellows were as nothing. He applied himself with gusto to
writing and mathematics and all other studies deemed essential to men of quality. Enkidu learned
rapidly and became, in time, Tupshar's star pupil.
And the _shedu_ was ever there, guiding him through the moments of crisis, nagging him to do
better. He cursed it frequently, but in the end obeyed, for when he did what it wanted it left him
alone. Without it, he realized grudgingly, he would never have come as far as he had.
As a young man he was given leave to return to his village for a visit. He remained a slave, while
the villagers were free--but he wore rich robes now and spoke with eloquence and had a personal
attendant, while the villagers were ignorant and poor. His father was dead and his mother and one
sister had been sold outside the village in cancellation of new debts dating from the year the
barley harvest failed. His other sister was now big with her third or fourth child and barely
remembered him.
Enkidu was almost unable to converse with anyone in his home village, for no one there knew
anything of mathematics, astronomy, economics or other civilized disciplines. They only knew how
to irrigate their fields (incompetently), cultivate their grain (wastefully), and patch their
squalid huts (leakily) with palm boughs. He observed the thriving lice that inhabited their hair,
the snakes and rodents that shared their sweltering sun-baked domiciles, and their ubiquitous
naked and hungry children. He turned away.
Even his old home was gone, the sundried bricks dissolved in one of the floods. He had all his
childhood wishes, now--but he had lost the world he had known. Nothing remained for him but his
quest for Aten.
* * *
When his host was twelve years old, NK-2 took note of a shift in the balance of contemporary
power: Cyrus the Persian threw off his Mede overlord and went on to conquer the Mede empire
itself. Four years later Cyrus also conquered Lydia, to the other side of Babylonia. Now Cyrus was
considering new conquest. It was time to locate A-10.
CHAPTER 3
A newly impaled criminal kicked away his life beside the road to Babylon. The vertical pole on
which the naked man was mounted dug slowly into his intestines. Enkidu paused to look, for he had
not seen many such executions. This particular punishment was less common now than during the
generations of Assyria--but specialists still knew exactly how to mount a felon so that he would
not die too quickly, despite the pointed shaft that supported his torso via the anus.
A child dashed up to tug at one of the hanging feet. The mother hauled him back, scolding; she was
afraid her baby would get tainted blood on his hands and be contaminated. Genii were always
present, looking for a chance to take over the body of a careless person.
Enkidu realized he had led too sheltered a life. He was sickened by this display. Surely a quick
death would have sufficed; why make any man suffer so deliberately?
He turned south and put the matter out of his mind. He had to, lest it torment him unduly.
Executions were not his business.
The road to Babylon continued southward from the left bank of the Euphrates River, straight
through the open gate of the invasion-proof outer ramparts and on into the ground between the
walls. Enkidu was footsore and short of temper, and that roadside scene had not improved his
outlook.
It was later than he had planned to arrive at this city at the center of the world. He would
barely have time to seek out Aten's temple before nightfall. But Enkidu was glad to be so nearly
there. His spirits rose as he passed through the outer gates. Surely it would not take him too
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long to find it. Once he got on the Processional Way....
He discovered with new wonder that the road stretched ahead for more than a thousand paces before
reaching the walls of the city-proper. Already it was clear that Babylon was vaster than he had
imagined. Open barley fields, great groves of palms--within the outer walls!
He thought of Cyrus the Persian, whom Babylon had expected for some years now. When he came--if he
came--Cyrus would find the walls stout. If he should actually succeed in breaking through the
outer wall, he would still be excluded from the city proper. This entire area could be flooded at
will, Enkidu had heard, though he had not realized the scope of the project. He saw that ground
level was scarcely higher than the river here, and a large canal cut through the center of the
enclosure.
Closer to the city proper there were houses and cross streets, the overflow of the original
establishment. Traffic increased: tradesmen in yellow tunics, ragged loafers, men on the backs of
tall half-wild asses. Two chariots of the city garrison swept grandly by. Enkidu stopped in his
tracks to admire the magnificent black horses with their flying manes. A merchant's cart clattered
abruptly around a corner on two wheels. Enkidu jumped back, avoiding a leather-bound wheel by a
finger's breadth. Ah, commerce!
He looked down when he felt the surface change under his sandals. Large flagstones of fine
limestone and red breccia formed the pavement now, and every slab bore an inscription. He
squatted, heedless of the jostling, to read the angular wedge-writing: NEBUCHADNEZZAR, KING OF
BABYLON, SON OF NABOPOLASSER, KING OF BABYLON AM I. THE BABIL STREET I PAVED WITH BLOCKS OF SHADU
STONE FOR THE PROCESSION OF THE GREAT LORD MARDUK. MARDUK, LORD, GRANT ETERNAL LIFE.
Enkidu smiled. Marduk was master of Babylon, as surely as Ishtar was its mistress. But was it for
the glory of the god that this inscription had been imprinted, or for that of the former king?
This was the beginning of the Processional Way. His heart quickened and his eyes strained eagerly
ahead.
The Way stretched before him--magnificent, incredibly wide, lined with temples and what must be
palaces. The structures were white and gold and the broad earth between them was alive with red
and yellow and green paintings, all laid out in leisured order. The sky above looked even bluer
here than elsewhere. Truly, this was a city the gods themselves might proudly inhabit. But where
was the temple of Aten?
He had realized before he came that Aten's temple would not be great and showy like Shamash's or
the others. Yet he was vaguely disappointed to have his expectation confirmed.
But he really couldn't afford disappointment until he was sure. There was still time to search out
the temple in the city proper. Perhaps it was farther along on the Processional Way, and perhaps
it _was_ grand after all....
The renowned inner fortifications rose to the height of twelve tall men and more above the water
level of the moat--a massive wall of sun-baked brick, with a roadway on top along which charged a
chariot of the garrison. Already he could see what must be the famous lions, and above them
frequent towers reared over battlements three times the height of a man. Archers at their summits
could peer down some ninety feet. This resembled a mountain chain more than it did any human
structure!
Pilgrims and tourists squeezed around him as they crossed the moat. The river wandered to the
right, but straight ahead loomed the north entrance to the great city. The Processional Way, he
could see, passed into and directly through the gate of the goddess of battle and fertility. The
Gate of Ishtar.
It would traverse Babylon's center, he knew, this most famous avenue in all the world. It would be
garnished by ornate temples inside; but first it had to feed itself into the tiny mouth of the
fortress wall. On each side ran a magnificent enameled frieze with sculptured lions. They looked
about to jump out of their bas-relief--some enameled in white, with yellow manes, and others
yellow with red manes. There were some sixty on each side. Their jaws were open in macabre welcome
to the stranger entering the city.
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Enkidu took it all in, hard pressed to keep from running ahead like a puppy to sniff out new
wonders. There would be time for such touring, he knew--after he had found the temple of his god.
The ramparts thrust up again, mound on mound, tower on tower. Square. Powerful. Beautiful. At
last: the Gate of Ishtar itself. He pressed on in, and found himself between two close walls.
This interval was lighted by sunlight from above. Enkidu looked up--and spied silhouettes of
enormous kettles hanging beside myriad narrow slits. He shuddered: in time of war those frightful
vats would be filled with boiling oil, and skilled archers would be stationed behind the
embrasures. What army would dare to come against these ready instruments? Woe to the soldier who
invoked the wrath of Ishtar, most powerful and temperamental of goddesses!
The walls below the skylights were at least forty feet above the stone pavement at the ground
level. Enkidu felt like a toy figure in this lofty enclosure. The bricks were glazed, and
superimposed on them were fantastic sculptures in relief: great snorting bulls, life sized,
brilliantly enameled and seeming to charge out at the intruders. Alternating with these were
dragons, their sinuous bodies writhing out, nostrils flaring, fangs threatening. Rank on rank of
these captive animals lined the walls, dozens of them, sixties of them, each an individual
masterpiece of decoration.
The inner door stood open--solid planks of cedar, covered at the edges with copper, with strong
bronze hinges embedded in its surface.
Beyond this door lay Babylon.
And Aten.
* * *
Yes, it was impressive, NK-2 agreed. It was amazing what substantial edifices could be constructed
of such crude base materials. Yet this society remained at least a millennium from the development
of true space travel, unless phenomenal breakthroughs occurred.
He was tempted to extend his penumbra and check for Station A-10 directly--but as always the
spectre of enemy presence inhibited him. He would be vulnerable when extended, and an enemy
infiltrator would be well versed in detection and combat techniques. Better to stick well within
the anonymous shelter of his host until he was quite certain of the station.
It wasn't as though this host lacked incentive. It would be impossible to _stop_ the host from
searching for A-10 at this point! NK-2 could well afford to ride. What was a few more hours, after
sixteen years?
* * *
By evening Enkidu had not come upon Aten's temple, but his eagerness had not abated. There was so
much to see! He still paused many times to stare up at Etemenanki, the towering ziggurat of seven
colors that dominated the city's sky. His footsteps had taken him to the Temple of Marduk the
Creator, richest of shrines--and on past it. Time enough later to present himself there. This day
he would step up to the shrine of Aten himself, and Aten's would be the first temple in Babylon
that he would enter. Yet where was this shrine? Merkes?
The Merkes was a closed residential district, the oldest part of the city. It had been planned in
spacious squares--but the ancient builders had not reckoned on its now-teeming numbers. It was
packed to overflowing with citizens.
Enkidu gaped at the houses. He had seen double-level dwellings before--but these were three and
four stories high, with small walled gardens and, he presumed, deep wells in their courtyards. As
he strode on in his quest, the houses became poorer. Some of their walls had partly fallen in,
exposing the sunbaked bricks beneath the higher quality facing, and the roofs looked long
unclayed. Could Aten's temple possibly be amid such debris?
He became aware that fewer people jostled him. The streets were clearing as men and women
disappeared behind their red doors. It was late, and he was tired, and still he had not come upon
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the temple of his god!
He stepped onto an alleyway paved with flagstones well worn but firm, and saw that it led toward a
temple. His spleen glowed once again with hope and he hastened his steps.
The altar faced the entrance. This was not Aten's temple! Alluring priestesses stared at him
discreetly from beside it. This had to be the temple of Ishtar of Agade. Enkidu looked at it in
mingled appreciation and consternation, feeling foolish. He resumed his search.
Lost in the city's splendors, exalted with his inner purpose, Enkidu had taken little thought for
his night's lodging. He had expected to find the temple within this stupefying city, and now that
he had failed he was out of sorts. His feet were sore from hours of walking on hot hard pavements.
How could the day have fled so swiftly?
The tall, shabby houses cast long, long shadows, and the sky was darkening. Only a scattering of
people were still abroad. He intercepted a hurrying townsman--a tanner's apprentice, from his
smell and appearance--and inquired directly: what way should a stranger turn his feet in order to
arrive at the Temple of Aten?
The youth's eyes widened. He drew back, gave a blank stare, and pushed on past Enkidu quickly.
Enkidu drew similar responses from the other folk of Babylon, what few he could find to ask.
Twilight came over the city. Stars began to sparkle like lamps being lit in distant windows. It
occurred to Enkidu that he might be forced to defer his visit to Aten's temple until morning. He
began to consider where he might lodge for the night.
The Temple of Marduk, of course. He would go there, present his credentials, accept their
hospitality. He knew where Marduk was, at any rate.
Yet he was reluctant to visit Marduk first. Aten was the god who had drawn him to Babylon. Enkidu
slowed his pace, considering his alternatives. Could he engage a room at an inn? For how much? He
was not sure of the going rates in such a city. Despite his education, he remained a country lad.
Still, he reasoned: half a shekel should be more than sufficient for a night's room and a meal or
two. He had fifteen of the silver half-sheckel coins on his person, and three full shekels. And
other things of value. He tightened his finger on his clay tablet and looked about him.
He saw only closed doors.
It was dark now. Countless stars were out, and the half-moon rode high in the sky. The luminous
arch had dimly materialized, spanning the entire sky, fascinating him as it always did. The planet
Ishtar glowed in the west, seeming as close as fruit ripe for the plucking.
The street was far from divine, in contrast. Its tomb-like silence was broken only by the
scurryings of rats and the barks of stray dogs that competed for street scavengings.
Enkidu had passed one or two places that might be inns. He struck out northward.
But the gate that separated Merkes from the rest of the city was now closed and locked. Enkidu's
shouts and bangings brought neither notice nor reply from the gatekeeper, if indeed there were
one. Some system!
He would have to remain the night in Merkes.
He headed southward again with some vague plan of walking until morning or perhaps finding some
place to sit or lie in the open, though he did not relish sullying his white cloak with the offal
of the streets. But he was too tired to walk much longer, and it was not safe to stay out with
one's silver....
The streets continued to narrow as he moved on with something like panic supplanting his
weariness. The paving ended and the houses closed in to a solid mass, one connected to the next--
windowless, forbidding, gloomy. The only evidence that life went on behind the palmwood doors was
the occasional openings and spewing out of table refuse. The street was in fact buried in offal
and debris. The leavings of countless eaten shellfish crackled underfoot, and each step was a
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hazard of broken bricks half buried in settled clay. In some places the street level rose above
that of the door stills, for the street was built of trampled refuse.
He had just dodged another post-priandal emission when another footfall crackled not far distant.
He peered toward the sound.
A figure was approaching him, but the moon was behind it so that he could not see it clearly.
Enkidu stood very still. No point in inviting the attentions of a possible cutpurse.
As the person approached he could just make out a long, plain tunic, but it concealed the bodily
outlines. The face seemed smooth. A woman? He could not tell her age in the shadow.
She eyed him boldly, perhaps noting the richness of his cloak, the quality of cloth in his shawl,
his knee-length tunic, his headband, and his soft leather sandals. Or was it his face she
contemplated: the high-set eyebrows that people claimed lent his narrow face a look of half
surprise, the dark brown eyes, the young man's beard that half-concealed his cleft chin? He knew
he was not precisely handsome, of course; still--
"One shekel," she said. Enkidu realized that he had been approached by a prostitute.
He was in no mood for such wares. Moreover, she did not wear the mark of a registered courtesan of
the Temple of Ishtar, so she was probably diseased. He turned away. All he wanted was a place to
spend the night.
Reacting instantly to his look of distaste, she caught his arm. "Half a shekel."
Enkidu angrily shrugged off her hand. He was not trying to bargain! But then another thought
struck him. "Where may a stranger spend the night?"
Her eyes appraised him cynically. "The night? Two shekels!"
He caught her meaning. "Not with you!" he grunted, at once embarrassed and exasperated. "I want to
sleep--no more. A room for the night, alone."
She stared noncommittally until he brought out a bright shekel, its head of Nabonaid frowning in
the shadow.
She took it without a word and turned. He followed her down the alley and into a nondescript
dwelling. Even in the darkness of the inner passage he could see its degenerate state. The thin
clay lining the walls had cracked and fallen down to be trampled into the dirt floor, and the
unbaked bricks behind it were crumbling. They passed into a courtyard whose stench heralded the
stacked tiles of an untended privy. Next to that, great jars were filled with water for drinking
and household use. A standard arrangement. Crude steps cut into the courtyard wall led to the
upper stories.
Enkidu wondered what kept the top floor from settling down into the bottom, since the house was so
close to collapse, but he took a breath and mounted the steps. It was only for a night. He took
his blank room on the second floor, not even asking for a lamp.
Strange that this city, rich with its temples and palaces and ziggurats, should neglect the wants
of its living masses. The silver and gold outlay for just one temple, out of the half-hundred in
Babylon, could rebuild the entire Merkes. But the voices of the priests were ever louder than
those of the needy.
As he removed his rich outer tunic so as not to foul it on the filthy palm-bough mattress on the
floor Enkidu was glad he had no light. He could not see the racing roaches that he knew were
disturbed and intrigued by his presence. He folded the tunic carefully, brushed a space clear with
the side of his hand, and set the material down beside him. He weighted it with the clay tablet.
His money pouch he kept on his body, not trusting it elsewhere.
As he lay in the silence, his nostrils pinched by the close odor of cramped quarters in this old
city, of stale sweat and rind of milk spilled in the mattress, the droppings of rats and fat
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file:///F|/rah/Piers%20Anthony/Piers%20Anthony%20&%20Frances%20Hall%20-%20Pretender%20(v3.0).txtPretenderbyPiersAnthonyandFrancesHallCHAPTER1Thecraftwasintrouble.Itmighthavebeenanenemynimbus-mine,forthiswasamarginalzone.Morelikelyitwasrandomfailuresomewhereinthisoldunit.NK-2wasnomechanic.Itwouldb...

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