The Bog (30 page)

“I couldn’t,” he returned. “Even if you promised to teach me all that you know, the price that you have just set forth is too high.”

“Do not be so certain,” Grenville countered quickly as his gaze became even more penetrating.

“Why should I not be certain about what I know lies in my own heart?”

“Because you do not yet know the full extent of my powers. You know what I have given up, but you do not know all of the doorways that have been opened for me in return.” Grenville set down his brandy snifter. “For example, one of your desires is to learn about the past, and to gratify your curiosity you spend your time groveling in the mud. Well, let me show you one further manipulation of reality that magic has allowed me, let me show you one more benefit of my power.”

Grenville leaned back in his chair as he did a spider’s dance with his fingers and gestured for David to look into the fire before them. David did as requested, but he did not immediately see anything different about the flames. He did, however, feel a most peculiar tactile sensation. It was the sort of feeling he normally experienced in an elevator as it smoothly but quickly accelerated. It was as if from visual cues he was not aware that he was moving, but his stomach, his whole insides seemed to be falling away from him with eerie speed. Next he felt what seemed to be pressure changes building around his head and in his inner ear, and as he continued to gaze at the flames that danced before him, he realized they were beginning to fade away, not die out, but fade, as if they were no more than a picture from a movie projector whose bulb was slowly dimming.

As he looked around he realized that the same phantomlike quality was beginning to overtake the bindings of the books, and the furnishings in the room, and then the walls themselves, until all that was left of the room that just moments before had been so real was the floor and the chairs they were sitting in and everything else was darkness.

For a few moments they just sat there as if they were on the pinnacle of some desert plateau, and then finally the floor itself faded out of existence and they were adrift in a murky void. For several moments David could discern nothing but utter darkness and the feel of his chair beneath him. And then he once again became aware of movement as a gray and shadowy light began to glow around them.

As he watched, the light slowly grew brighter until suddenly something white shot by his face with lightning speed, and then shot by again. It took him several seconds to realize that the ghostly projectiles were clouds. He became aware of Grenville in his chair beside him and frozen in the same configuration as if they were still sitting side by side in the study. But as the light grew brighter still he saw to his amazement that they appeared to be several miles above the earth. No sooner had this realization dawned on him than he perceived they were no longer motionless, but were plummeting downward at a terrifying speed and with their chairs tilted so far forward that he had no idea what was keeping them from falling out. He gripped the arms of his chair tightly as the wind and cold ripped by him and they plunged deeper, until at last they broke through the cloud cover. As the white veil parted he could make out an endless sweep of olive and gray-green countryside far below.

Then, as if their chairs had been fastened onto the wings of an invisible plane, they leveled off and soared along several thousand feet above the ground. It struck him that the landscape looked English, but there were still no landmarks or any other signs of civilization that might have offered him a clue as to where they were.

“What is this place?” he shouted.

“Wait and see,” Grenville called back.

David squinted in the direction of the horizon and could make out several large gray objects. Soon he could tell that there were also people moving about the tall and bulky shapes, and as they drew closer still he at last realized what they were doing. The shapes were stones and the people were moving them arduously along on massive sledges. From the arrangement of the monoliths already in place he suddenly realized that he was witnessing the building of Avebury, the largest of the British stone circles, and situated about eighteen miles north of Stonehenge.

He recalled that Grenville had said this was his birthplace, and he looked at the old sorcerer incredulously. “Is this really what I think it is?”

“You tell me. You’re the archaeologist.”

“But that means that we’re thousands of years in the past!”

Grenville only nodded and cackled, his laughter muted by the wind.

David returned his gaze to the impossible scene before him. They were still high enough that an occasional rift of clouds passed between them and the ground, and he struggled to make out more features below. As they neared the army of pale and ghostly workers, he discerned some of the details of how the massive sledges were constructed. He noticed that the Neolithic wooden structure known to archaeologists as the “Sanctuary” was not crumbling or in a state of decay, but was built of freshly hewn wood, had a column of smoke rising from it, and appeared to be used as a charnel house. Most of all he noticed the pale, half-naked bodies of the workers, and the slow ponderous ballet of their toil as they moved like creatures out of a dream across the gray and olive plane.

At length, the spectral army passed beneath them, and as they soared away he realized that in a glance he had solved mysteries of artifact and technique that had puzzled archaeologists for centuries. He was swept with excitement as he watched the bedraggled entourage fade into the distance and he turned to Grenville longingly.

“Can’t we go back?”

“Back, indeed,” Grenville returned, shouting above the wind. “But not back there... back further in time!”

Grenville momentarily lowered his head as he apparently gave some silent, cerebral command, and as if they were on a roller coaster they ascended swiftly once again into the clouds.

David shielded his eyes as a thunder of air engulfed them and there was a flapping sound as of a flag waving violently in the wind. A thousand days and nights seemed to wink instantly by them, and the driving wind became so furious that David had to shield his face entirely. Only once was he able to look up and catch a glimpse of what seemed to be a swirling tunnel of clouds, and then the roar grew deafening and they descended once again into the darkness.

As before, when the roar finally faded he saw that they were flying along through the clouds, and this time when the cloud cover parted he saw that they were high above a desert. Wherever they were, it also appeared to be dusk, for he could make out Venus twinkling on the horizon. They had also entered at a greater altitude than they had over Avebury, and as they plummeted downward David feared that he was going to faint.

At length, as they leveled off, he made out what appeared to be man-made structures on the desert far below, geometric traceries that nearly blended in with the color of the sand. It was only as they descended farther that he realized one of the objects was a ziggurat. He was looking down at one of the first monuments of civilization, one of the city-states of ancient Sumeria.

As they flew in closer they passed over a bluff, and a larger brace of earthwork settlements came into view, surrounded by a filigree of irrigated fields. Most noticeable of all, however, was the immense cloud of dust that rolled across the horizon, raised by an army that appeared to be in the midst of an attack upon the city.

Suddenly, to David’s astonishment, they descended so close to the ground that for a moment he thought they were going to crash. But instead, they leveled off once again and glided straight toward one of the desert plateaus. As they drew closer it appeared that there was a small battalion of Sumerian soldiers waiting to greet them. David and Grenville flew right up to the assemblage, and then, like a great bird descending, their chairs floated gently down and alighted on the sandy promontory just a scant twenty feet from the group.

“What are we doing here?” David asked breathlessly, but Grenville only gestured for him to be silent. Incredulous, he turned and looked once again at the soldiers. In the manner of the time, they wore long, flounced skirts, and on their upper bodies they had only fringed shawls draped over one side of their bronzed and muscular shoulders. For the moment they appeared neither friendly nor antagonistic, but just gazed at them sternly as they held their swords and spears motionless at their sides. Behind them stood what appeared to be the tent of their commander, and as David watched, the flap parted and out stepped their leader. He was taller than many of his soldiers, although he still stood only about five feet seven, and his black hair was parted in the middle and braided into a thick pigtail. His long black beard was trimmed into a square geometric block and his features were fierce and determined.

He stepped forward, accompanied by several priestly advisers.

“Stand,” Grenville instructed quietly.

They both stood to greet the approaching group.

“Who is it?” David asked under his breath just moments before they arrived.

“It is Lugalzaggesi,” Grenville whispered in return.

David looked once again at the army still laying siege to the city in the distance. “Then this must be the taking of Lagash,” he replied, recalling the ancient military leader’s role in Sumerian history.

“Very good,” Grenville commended. “Now, do be quiet if you value your life.”

David still could not believe it. He looked down at the sand beneath his feet, at the glint of Lugalzaggesi’s sword, and at the solidity of his flesh, searching for some flaw that betrayed it all as a dream. But the rattle of their sandals, the dry desert air, it was all uncompromisingly real.

The cadre reached them.

David looked into the eyes of the warrior king, the conquering Alexander of his day, and was suddenly galvanized by the smoldering darkness he found there. It was not only that they were cruel eyes. What was far more frightening was that they were vacant, soulless eyes, more like an animal’s than a man’s. It occurred to him that they were the eyes of a creature not yet far removed from the beast, the way the eyes of his race had looked at the very dawn of its humanity.

He trembled, wondering what was going to happen next, when to his surprise, Lugalzaggesi fell to his knees and bowed his head, and all of the soldiers and the priests did the same.

“
Inanna igbal kalkatum
, “Grenville greeted them, and Lugalzaggesi rose to his feet. “
Elam ashak asharu,
” the old magician continued.

Lugalzaggesi’s eyes filled with tears. “
Elam shigash shi malakir,
” he returned reverently, and slowly all of the soldiers and the priests returned to their feet. “
Ennatum ashak?
” he added, and David noted that even in these savage times the raised inflection at the end of a sentence seemed to denote a question.

Grenville looked in the direction of the city under siege, his gaze as merciless as always, and then once again turned in the direction of the warrior king.

“
Ennatum ashak,
” he confirmed in reply.

A wave of approval seemed to pass through the attendant soldiers as still more tears flooded Lugalzaggesi’s eyes and he strode imperiously to the edge of the plateau. He raised his sword and held it motionless aloft for several moments, then brought it crashing down. Another resounding cry rang out from the army in the valley as battalion after battalion of Lugalzaggesi’s troops now flooded through the gates of the city.

“What is it?” David whispered. “What has just happened?”

“He thinks we are gods,” Grenville explained, “and he wanted my go-ahead before he laid final sack to the city.”

“And you gave it?” David asked contemptuously.

“It does not matter,” Grenville replied. “If we had not happened along, he would have found his omen in something tonight.”

David’s horror remained unmitigated. In the distance he could make out the muted screams of women and children as they were put to the sword. “Why did you bring me here?” he asked.

“To show you something I think you’ll like,” Grenville returned.

“Certainly not this?”

“The battle? No... Something you’ll find far more to your interest. Something that Lugalzaggesi doesn’t really consider all that important. Let me show you.”

Grenville turned to Lugalzaggesi once again and murmured something else in the tongue that David had recognized as Sumerian, and the warrior king nodded obediently.

“Follow me,” Grenville instructed David as he padded off through the sand.

Lugalzaggesi had already conquered much of the perimeter of the city, and at the end of the plateau they came upon a group of buildings David recognized as part of the temple complex. Outside of one of the buildings, Lugalzaggesi, who had followed close behind, pointed toward a door.

Taking a torch from its wall sconce, Grenville motioned for David to accompany him inside. They passed through a tunnel into an anteroom, and then through another tunnel and into a vast chamber. Grenville held the torch aloft and David gasped. Lugalzaggesi’s men were obviously using the chamber as a storage room, and there were huge clay jars filled with oil, water, beer, and grain. But what captured David’s attention were the clay tablets the room contained. Lining the walls and filling endless wooden shelves were thousands upon thousands of them, not crumbled or half buried in the sand, but new and clean and vividly legible. It was clear that Lugalzaggesi and his men cared little about the contents of the room, for here and there they had callously pushed shelving down to make room for their stores, but the vast majority of the tablets were still intact. David knelt forward and gingerly picked up one of the cuneiform-encrusted tablets, and his heart started to race. Before him was the entire temple library of Lagash. He knew that scarcely a fragment of these tablets would survive into his era, that time and history would eventually destroy what Lugalzaggesi’s thoughtlessness had already started. But for the moment they were intact, and he marveled at the wealth of knowledge, at the fantastic secrets and lost mysteries they most assuredly contained.