said:
“Nothing-at-all? It is a land that never was, and will always be, my lord. Its boundaries are nowhere and its capital city is everywhere, nor do any of us ever leave it.”
“Ah. Ah. Indeed. Nicely put. You are Early Dead, are you?”
“Very early, my lord.”
“Earlier than Ch’in Shih Huang Ti? Earlier than the Lords of Shang and Hsia?”
Gilgamesh turned in puzzlement toward Lovecraft, who told him in a half-whisper, “Ancient kings of China. Your time was even before theirs.”
Shrugging, Gilgamesh replied, “They are not known to me, my lord, but you hear what the Britannic ambassador says. He is a man of learning: it must be so. I will tell you that I am older than Caesar by far, older than Amenhotep, older than Belshazzar. By a great deal.”
Yeh-lu Ta-shih considered that a moment. Then he made another of his little gestures of dismissal, as though brushing aside the whole concept of relative ages in the Afterworld. With a dry laugh he said, “So you are very old, King Gilgamesh. I congratulate you. And yet the Ice-Hunter folk would tell us that you and I and your Belshazzar and your Amenhotep, whoever they may be, all arrived here only yesterday; and in the eyes of the Hairy Men, the Ice-Hunters themselves are mere newcomers. And so on and so on. There’s no beginning to it, is there? Any more than there’s an end.”
Without waiting for an answer he asked Gilgamesh, “How did you come by that gory wound, great king of Nothing-at-all?”
“A misunderstanding, my lord. It may be that your border patrol is a little over-zealous at times.”
One of the courtiers leaned toward the emperor and murmured something. Prester John’s serene brow grew furrowed. He lifted a flawlessly contoured eyebrow ever so slightly.
“Killed nine of them, did you?”
“They attacked us before we had the opportunity of showing our diplomatic credentials,” Lovecraft put in quickly. “It was entirely a matter of self-defense, my lord Prester John.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it.” The emperor seemed to contemplate for a moment, but only for a moment, the skirmish that had cost the lives of nine of his horsemen; and then quite visibly he dismissed that matter too from the center of his attention. “Well, now, my lords ambassador –”
Abruptly Gilgamesh swayed, tottered, started to fall. He checked himself just barely in time, seizing a massive porphyry column and clinging to it until he felt more steady. Beads of sweat trickled down his forehead into his eyes. He began to shiver. The huge stone column seemed to be expanding and contracting. Waves of vertigo were rippling through him and he was seeing double, suddenly. Everything was blurring and multiplying. He drew his breath in deeply, again, again, forcing himself to hold on. He wondered if Prester John was playing some kind of game with him, trying to see how long his strength could last. Well, if he had to, Gilgamesh swore, he would stand here forever in front of Prester John without showing a hint of weakness.
But now Yeh-lu Ta-shih was at last willing to extend compassion. With a glance toward one of his pages the emperor said, “Summon my physician, and tell him to bring his tools and his potions. That wound should have been dressed an hour ago.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Gilgamesh muttered, trying to keep the irony from his tone.
The doctor appeared almost at once, as though he had been waiting in an antechamber. Another of Prester John’s little games, perhaps? He was a burly, broad-shouldered, bushy-haired man of more than middle years, with a manner about him that was brisk and bustling but nevertheless warm, concerned, reassuring. Drawing Gilgamesh down beside him on a low divan covered with the gray-green hide of some scalyhell-dragon, he peered into the wound, muttered something unintelligible under his breath in a guttural language unknown to the Sumerian, and pressed his thick fingers around the edges of the torn flesh until fresh
“Nothing-at-all? It is a land that never was, and will always be, my lord. Its boundaries are nowhere and its capital city is everywhere, nor do any of us ever leave it.”
“Ah. Ah. Indeed. Nicely put. You are Early Dead, are you?”
“Very early, my lord.”
“Earlier than Ch’in Shih Huang Ti? Earlier than the Lords of Shang and Hsia?”
Gilgamesh turned in puzzlement toward Lovecraft, who told him in a half-whisper, “Ancient kings of China. Your time was even before theirs.”
Shrugging, Gilgamesh replied, “They are not known to me, my lord, but you hear what the Britannic ambassador says. He is a man of learning: it must be so. I will tell you that I am older than Caesar by far, older than Amenhotep, older than Belshazzar. By a great deal.”
Yeh-lu Ta-shih considered that a moment. Then he made another of his little gestures of dismissal, as though brushing aside the whole concept of relative ages in the Afterworld. With a dry laugh he said, “So you are very old, King Gilgamesh. I congratulate you. And yet the Ice-Hunter folk would tell us that you and I and your Belshazzar and your Amenhotep, whoever they may be, all arrived here only yesterday; and in the eyes of the Hairy Men, the Ice-Hunters themselves are mere newcomers. And so on and so on. There’s no beginning to it, is there? Any more than there’s an end.”
Without waiting for an answer he asked Gilgamesh, “How did you come by that gory wound, great king of Nothing-at-all?”
“A misunderstanding, my lord. It may be that your border patrol is a little over-zealous at times.”
One of the courtiers leaned toward the emperor and murmured something. Prester John’s serene brow grew furrowed. He lifted a flawlessly contoured eyebrow ever so slightly.
“Killed nine of them, did you?”
“They attacked us before we had the opportunity of showing our diplomatic credentials,” Lovecraft put in quickly. “It was entirely a matter of self-defense, my lord Prester John.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it.” The emperor seemed to contemplate for a moment, but only for a moment, the skirmish that had cost the lives of nine of his horsemen; and then quite visibly he dismissed that matter too from the center of his attention. “Well, now, my lords ambassador –”
Abruptly Gilgamesh swayed, tottered, started to fall. He checked himself just barely in time, seizing a massive porphyry column and clinging to it until he felt more steady. Beads of sweat trickled down his forehead into his eyes. He began to shiver. The huge stone column seemed to be expanding and contracting. Waves of vertigo were rippling through him and he was seeing double, suddenly. Everything was blurring and multiplying. He drew his breath in deeply, again, again, forcing himself to hold on. He wondered if Prester John was playing some kind of game with him, trying to see how long his strength could last. Well, if he had to, Gilgamesh swore, he would stand here forever in front of Prester John without showing a hint of weakness.
But now Yeh-lu Ta-shih was at last willing to extend compassion. With a glance toward one of his pages the emperor said, “Summon my physician, and tell him to bring his tools and his potions. That wound should have been dressed an hour ago.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Gilgamesh muttered, trying to keep the irony from his tone.
The doctor appeared almost at once, as though he had been waiting in an antechamber. Another of Prester John’s little games, perhaps? He was a burly, broad-shouldered, bushy-haired man of more than middle years, with a manner about him that was brisk and bustling but nevertheless warm, concerned, reassuring. Drawing Gilgamesh down beside him on a low divan covered with the gray-green hide of some scalyhell-dragon, he peered into the wound, muttered something unintelligible under his breath in a guttural language unknown to the Sumerian, and pressed his thick fingers around the edges of the torn flesh until fresh
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