Once there were two landless men named Arakan and Unarta. Together they broke the gates of the city Eridu, they named Arakan king there and yoked its people as his slaves. They never wearied of battle, bread, or beauties. Arakan was a restless man who would be unsatisfied even had he owned the whole world. No any soft feeling ever doused the ravenous fires of his heart. Arakan exceeded other men only in shedding blood. But in this, he exceeded even Unarta who exceeded all others.
In days of peace, the pair wearied the people by making them raise great works that towered over the landscape. In days of war, they drove the people into battle and lead them home triumphant with captives in their wake. A broad man with harsh features, Arakan’s heart was harsher. Death was the shadow he cast on all his enemies. Even in private most men dared not curse him.
On the day of one of these returns, Arakan’s chariot lead the grand parade of slaves and slavers. Arakan was robed in scarlet and the kingly headdress, so that the crowd would marvel at him. The parade passed through the great stone entryway and into the city of clay and earth houses. The whole city lined the streets as the parade made way to the palace, shouting, “Mighty is Arakan! Mighty is Arakan! He has made Eridu a great city!”
Even so, Arakan was not satisfied. In the train behind him, one of those he had vanquished spoke to curse him, “Mighty is Arakan! The wicked know it and rejoice but the righteous weep!”
Arakan, though he was a mighty king, rounded from his chariot and leapt to the hardened earth of Eridu’s street. Gasps spread throughout the crowd. Arakan found the man who had spoken, already surrounded by and beaten by Arakan's soldiers. “Step away from him,” Arakan ordered as the crowd watched in silence.
Arakan wore his robes and heavy leather, a bronze blade at his side, and he looked more the part of conqueror there than any other. He took his blade from his waist and undid the binding ropes around the man’s hands and feet. The man trembled before Arakan, thin and weak already from a hard march. Arakan bade Unarta to come and take Arakan’s own sword. “Though I have vanquished you already, yet I will give you a chance to show courage once again. See, if you can but put my shoulder to the earth I will release you, yes and not only you, but all of your people who my great army has conquered. For my part, I shall try to wring the life from your neck. May no man interfere with this, the order of Arakan, king of Eridu!”
“Shall you be named right because of this? May heaven see this aping fool! May heaven hear me! May it send you a knowledge of what you have wrought!” the man said and likely he would have gone on, with more curses and worse, but Arakan was no fool. With a swift swing of his fist, he laid the man out upon the earth and with a stomp of his foot crushed the man’s neck.
The people returned to their chanting and the man’s kinsfolk were made to march over his corpse. Yet the man’s cry was repeated by the whole people in the quiet of their beds. Only Unarta said prayers for Arakan’s peace that night. Arakan knew nothing of this, however, for no one spoke, even on their bed, against him after that day.
Seasons passed and the people under Arakan’s rule were called back to the fields. Arakan’s great works and wars had to cease for a time. Even tyrants cannot rule without bread. So instead, Unarta and Arakan were feasting and enjoying all the fruits of conquest. Yet they were restless men who could not be satisfied, so they were unhappy. Unarta reclined on a couch next to Arakan, his short black hair and beard showing his relative station. “Come, Arakan, let us test ourselves. Let’s see if it’s the lions who contends with gazelle or the lions that contend with men who are stronger.”
“Game bores me, Unarta. When we hunted together, even behemoth or leviathan would have trembled. Will we take lions in their stead?”
“Tell me that these soft beds and sweet wines and smooth women have not seduced you?”
Had it been another man, Arakan would have slain Unarta upon his couch. That would have ended the matter. Arakan did love Unarta, alone of all living things, but he was a restless man and so the words required an answer. “If it is within your courage, then, let us pursue the red lion of the crags.”
Now this was a foolish challenge. The red lion of the crags was an old thing, older than even Eridu, older than the works of men. In the hills, they said she was a bride of death. Arakan knew it was foolish and hoped that Unarta might flinch from it.
Unarta knew it was foolish. He should have said so, should have demurred, should have humbled himself. But as the king was, so was his servant a restless man. He could not admit to the danger. “It is a worthy foe, Arakan. We should prepare, however, and not go hastily.”
So they agreed to not go hastily for they were men of war. This might have given them a chance to be wiser. But as soon as one hinted that they should stop, the other made them to feel as if they were the weaker party. In the end, with a long train of equipment and retinue, the two warriors set off into the high hills of the crag.
Long was the train of Arakan and Unarta. For days, they marched in the high hills and wherever they found locals, the counsel was the same. “Turn back, before she finds you, and does to you what she has done to other men.”
At each stage, they rejected this counsel. For when they killed the red lion, they said, they would have fame above all others. Yet it was a hard thing to track the lion, though it ate man and beast. They almost despaired of the task when they reached the house of a woman. She was not old and she was not young. She wore graying hair and a dress of red hide and she was exceedingly beautiful.
“You seek the red lion of the crags?” she asked, as they sat in her tent and ate her bread with her.
“Yes,” answered Arakan. He braced himself for that counsel which he had heard before. “We shall not be turned from it.”
“Far be it from me to contradict a king,” replied the woman. In those hills, people said they were the king's subjects but paid him neither tax nor too much honor. “For when the world was younger, my husband went out to find the red lion. Far he wandered on these hills till the day he found her. I have not seen him since.”
“Good lady,” Arakan said, “Do you know where he found her or how?”
“How I cannot say. But I know the place and I might show you there.”
This seemed good to Arakan and Unarta, so they took the woman into their party. She was exceedingly beautiful, a wild beauty that appealed to those restless men and reminded them of their boyhoods. Yet she had lost a husband and she did not welcome them to her tent.
So they journeyed deeper into the mountains. Some days later, they lay down for the night, they and the whole camp. No scream awoke then nor did any alarm sound, but in the morning they found a man dead on the ground on the inside of their camp.
“What is this?” they all asked, as they looked at the mauled man, his body torn by claws. On the hard mountain ground, they could scarcely see even where the paws of the beast had stepped on the ground. Even the dogs could not chase the lion’s scent but only weave and turn about the camp.
“This is grievous,” Arakan said as he looked down at the man.
“Did you think we would march against such a magnificent creature without death?”
“She is a bride of death indeed, my friend. But see, we must not allow our camp to be infiltrated again. Let us trade watches in the night. I shall watch the first half and you shall watch the second. No one will escape our gaze.”
“They were heady days when last we stood watch,” Unarta said, his voice remembering his youth. Even for great men, the memory of youth cannot be equaled. The lot of youth is a different matter.
So they continued to march through the rocky mountains and follow the woman’s leading, Unarta took the second watch and Arakan the first. If by day they grew tired, they would rest in a planaquin and they would keep guard by night.
So for a little way, they kept their guard. “Here is the place,” said the woman on the third day. They stood before a cave, a small cave where a beast might take refuge. Unarta and Arakan commanded their troops to keep watch. Together they entered the place and there they found the bodies of robed men and mighty warriors.
“See these men were like you,” said the voice of the woman at the mouth of the cave. “See, some even have weapons of bronze. These are were mighty men. Have you come to follow after them?”
But Arakan was a proud man. He could not be bidden to change his course or reconsider. “We have come to kill the beast that did this. We have come to prove ourselves superior to these men and this beast.”
Unarta nodded to Arakan and clapped his shoulder in brotherly affection. The woman, for her part, looked down on them from the mouth of the cave but did not enter. They found evidence of recent habitation by the lion but not too recently.
“We shall camp here,” Arakan said to all the assembled men when they came out of the cave. “Bring me goats, that we might offer them for the dead who have died here and for this woman’s husband.”
So the camp was built and an altar of wood assembled. The soldiers gathered around their king and the woman stood to the side and Unarta stood to the other. Arakan slit the throat of the goats, poured out their blood, and they cooked the goats. Thanksgiving were given and blessings pronounced and they sat to eat. Thin camp-wine was spread to the camp and they drank and made merry till the fire grew low. “I shall go and sleep, my friend,” Unarta said. “I must be ready to wake.”
“Go,” Arakan said. Many of the men followed Unarta’s example but Arakan gave the matter little thought. Not since the two had taken up watch had the lion dared to attack the camp. She was a cunning creature. She would not attack while the mighty were awake.
The woman came to Arakan and sat beside him as he gazed into the night and the first watch milled at far corners. “Thank you for the goat,” she said, biting a piece of it. She had a wineskin hanging at her side but she was not drinking it.
“For the dead who have died, blood alone will do,” Arakan said.
“Not all who have journeyed here would have done this.”
“No, but I am a king. The men at my side would not walk easy if I did not make the offering.”
“Yet you have come so far to hunt a lion in the wilds? I did not think kings did such things.”
Arakan scowled. He had worn his kingly headdress, his silken robes and jewels upon his fingers in her sight for many days now. “Is it not for kings to protect his subjects and to avenge them?”
The woman looked at him, “I meant no offense, King. Yet if for my sake you came here, it is an astonishing thing. Truly such compassion would mark your greatness.”
Arakan was glad for the apology. But he bore the compliment uneasily. He had not come to deliver the people of the high hills from the lion. He had come to test himself and to embarrass Unarta and little more.
“Please,” said the woman, taking off her wineskin. “Take a little for my thanks.”
Arakan hesitated. He should not have drunken the wine, but she was beautiful and he felt the memory of his youth. He took the wineskin and opened it, drinking. It was an old wine, a strong wine that made light the heart. “It is excellent, thank you,” he said.
She put her hand upon his shoulder and he felt a flush of warmth. “It is good to have such a strong king.”
For a moment, Arakan felt easy at that. The woman left and the night passed on. He took the wineskin with him to bed that night and he drank it before it could turn bitter. He laid down to sleep and the wine made it easy.
The night was not as long as he had hoped. For in the night, he heard the cry of his brother at arms, Unarta. His body felt heavy, so that he moved slowly. But Arakan was a mighty warrior. He pulled himself up, pushing aside the wobbly feeling, grabbing a spear from his side and bolted into the camp.
In the midst of the camp, there was the red lion. It was as wide as a bear but twice as long and it towered even over Unarta, who stood head and shoulders above other men. Even woozy with drink, Arakan made his way to the beast, spear in hand, and. Unarta looked to Arakan and they met the battle together.
When the beast felt the spear collide with its shoulder, it did not roar or cry but it turned its head to Arakan. After it had identified its attacker, it struck toward Unarta whose sword was in his hand. The soldiers began to close on the beast.
“This is the bride of death!” Unarta shouted with excitement as he dodged. Arakan knew it was true. The bride seemed to look for a path to escape as the two men and the crowd of forces hemmed it in.
Arakan landed another blow to the beast’s shoulder and he could see its movements slow, ever so slightly. Something in its tensing body told Arakan that it was going to flee soon. “Hold it here!” Arakan commanded.
As soon as the command left his lips, the beast tried to make a break for the near side of the camp. Unarta was the closer of the pair, blocking the beast fell to him. The lion was massive but Unarta was bold and threw himself in its way. The lion let out a roar and barreled into him, carrying him along with its weight. As he slipped under the lion, Unarta thrust upward with his sword into the beast’s underbelly.
The lion gave out a roar at the wound and ran on, Unarta’s sword stuck in its ribcage. Arakan made haste after it and chased it into the dark. It moved impossibly silently and it left little as a trail. Only the blood from its injury now seemed to show where to follow.
Arakan moved quickly. He found the great thing lying on the ground, its breath rising and falling, its face wracked with pain. Arakan stared at it and it stared back within the moonlit night. “At last,” said the voice of the woman they had brought with them.
Arakan turned one way and then another but could not see where the voice had come from.
“At last, I can die,” the voice said again. Arakan looked and saw that as he heard the voice, the red lion’s mouth opened.
“Impossible…”
Something like a laugh came from the lion's throat. “Little king… I was old long ago... I go to meet my husband now.”
Arakan raised his spear and plunged it into the crippled beast’s neck. He stood for a moment in the dark of the night and turned back to the camp.
In the center of the camp, Unarta lay heavy on the ground. Beside him stood a healer they had brought. “Arakan!” Unarta shouted, “Did you slay the thing?”
“It was your blow that killed her,” Arakan said, clasping his friend’s hand. He was badly bruised and scraped but his mind was with him.
“Ah, they will have to say that I am the greater hunter now.”
“They need not say that.” Unarta laughed and Arakan stumbled off to his bed with the command, “We will head home in the morning.”
The whole camp assented and Arakan sent men to skin the red lion and drag back its meat. When he awoke in the morning, Unarta was beginning to move again and they began the long journey home.
They found their way to a river mouth and for a handful of days, all seemed fine. They moved along and Unarta rested. Neither took any more watches in their nights. The red lion’s death was hailed throughout the hills as a great deed, so that Unarta was blessed and called the greatest of hunters.
This riled Arakan a small measure but it had been Unarta who had dealt the deadly blow. He said nothing of it, save to Unarta. “It is only because I went to bed with wine that you have won the glory.” He left out the woman's deceit and their falling for it.
“Don’t blame me, my king, for it was you who had set the time of our watches.”
Arakan had to acknowledge this was true. Still, he said nothing further.
Later in the journey as they began to exit the mountains, Unarta seemed to stop in his healing. “Unarta,” Arakan said, as Unarta rode the palanquin. “Have you grown lazy?”
Unarta turned to his friend and he looked queasy, “No, no. The carriers have grown lazy, we haven’t been using it enough.”
“Well, give them whatever work seems best to you. But don’t linger too long upon your chair.”
“I shall endeavor to serve you, my king.”
Yet by the time that the river had grown wide enough to carry a boat, Unarta’s condition had grown worse. He was lain on a raft and Arakan rode with him and the healer only. Night and day Arakan hastened the boat’s course. For each tme he swung the oar, he remembered that this whole matter was his doing. He alone had chosen the game and he had led his friend into danger. Unarta’s condition decayed slowly but each day he woke less and less.
Fast the river carried them to the city of Eridu. He hastened in and lay Unarta on his own bed in the palace. He commanded bulls to be sacrificed on the altars of all the great gods, he gave birds to all the spirits of the world. He ordered that healers be brought from far and wide to heal his friend, Unarta. All this he did to assuage his gult and ward off grief
The healers with all their art held death back for many days. One day Unarta would seem to be better and one day he would grow worse. Mighty Arakan was not a man used to sitting and waiting. “Is there not some thing which might cure him?”
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“This is a strange sickness,” said the healers. “We do not know it well. It is from the mountains and we do what we can.”
So Arakan stalked the halls of his own palace like a ghost. He went up and down its many steps and looked upon its garden. Day and night he demanded that more be done. He did this whether it did any good or not.
On the third day since their arrival, the healers' reports had grown worse. “How hard shall be his progress,” they said to one another. “We do not know how many days he has, o King. Go and sit with him, may your presence bless him and make him well.”
This was too much to ask of the restless man. For though he might have climbed a mountain or fought a war or even summited an assault against the deathless gods, he could not sit and do nothing. “Have you done all there is to do? Is there no trick, no secret art which you have not tried?”
All the healers turned to one another, none wishing to give their answer. “My king, we have given every potion and every poultice we thought might nurture him. We have not spared him meat or bread, soup or milk. Only the gray lillies have we failed to give him and that seems a paltry chance at best.”
“And why have you failed him in this?”
“My king, the gray lillies grow beside the western waters in the spring months and it is autumn now. We have none to give him.”
“Does no one keep a store?”
“Not in this city, my king. They are only occasionally useful except against the bites of certain fish.”
Arakan called for his cloak and readied himself immediately. “Was it not the beast’s claws and teeth that cut my friend? Shouldn’t I spare nothing from him?”
“Please, stay with him, my lord. You were landless men together and have each other as your only countrymen. A heart as well as a body may give out, when he has been ill for so many days.”
Arakan ignored this wise counsel. He bade a messenger, “Command Unarta to hold on, for I go to find his cure.”
Hard he rode westward. In the rushing of his course, he wearied every chariot from Eridu to the westward sea. He came to the west there and found an old woman with the gray lillies. He paid her with a ring from his own finger and turned right around, rushing for Unarta. Even so, he had been gone many days by the time he came to Eridu again.
At the last hour, Arakan entered into his room, his hands wrapped around the gray lilies and shoved it into the hand of a healer. Arakan was late enough in his arrival, however, that Unarta had become insensate.
“Unarta, my friend, my brother,” Arakan said, cradling the man in his arms. Unarta was laid upon the bed and his hair had grown thin, even as Arakan had remained peerless strong. “Do not leave me… I cannot bear it here alone” The fever made his body hot but Unarta could not speak or give response. The healing broth was mixed and poured down his throat.
Arakan kept his bosom friend against his chest, body to body, breath to breath. Yet no matter how tightly Arakan had gripped him, the medicine did not hold. Soon enough, Unarta breathed a ragged, rattling breath and died.
“Bring him back!” Arakan commanded. Death to him had been a weapon in his hand, a dancing partner in his ravages. True in his youth he had feared death but talent, fortune, and a cold heart had assured him death was not so real as he had thought. It might happen to others but it would never happen to him or Unarta. “Give him back to me!”
“My king, please,” one of the healers said, looking helpless. “We might heal a man of some injury or lighten one’s pain, but we cannot bring back the dead!”
“Then find me someone who can!”
This senseless command sent them all scurrying out of the room, rushing one after another. Arakan, for his part, did not release Unarta nor would he receive food. He commanded meat and wine for the gods and muttered as he held Unarta, holding out hope for any power in heaven to move for him.
“Oh, my friend,” he whispered. “I would have thought it easier for the body to outlive the soul than for me to outlive you… Yet like a beast rips apart the flesh, you go and I stay.”
In such words and in such ways he remained, his body wrapped around his friend’s, his unhappiness plain for heaven and men. He was set to hold his watch and face death when it came for Unarta’s soul. Weary from his journey, tired from his loss, sleep conquered him and even his watch was broken.
Dreams poured over him without warning. No sweet visitation came from the underworld but a visit came. In the dream-land of his boyhood, Arakan found himself watching the red robed woman he now knew as the red lion. She was walking in a very particular space. “This is where you made your first kill,” she said, looking at him without much antipathy.
“Do you think to frighten me, specter? I have killed you once and might again and the more easily while you wear that face.”
“I have split you already from that which you alone loved,” the red lion said, her smile wide and happy. “What better may be done by joining you to him?”
Arakan frowned at her. She was an old thing and cunning, she could do wicked work with her words. He had learned enough to know that.
“You were made here, where you killed your first man.” Just as Arakan remembered it, a man pushed into his mother's tent and Arakan slit his throat. Time had wiped away the fear of it and only memory of the thrill remained.
“A raider proud and strong. I proved my strength that day”
“A boy trying to please fools.”
“Tell me how you came here and how I might find the way for Unarta,”
The woman laughed. The dream began to fade but Arakan was fast and strong of will and he leapt upon the woman taking her down to the old earth as he had so long ago. “This is my memory and here I am victorious!” Arakan declared, holding her to the ground.
“Oh indeed!” the woman said, laughing even harder. “Well then, king of Eridu, mighty warrior, victor! Mark my words well, I have crossed the westward sea. I came from a hole in the ground in a place where the sun refuses to shine. Deep amid the crags of that island there is a hole that goes down to the underworld, marked by a tall red tree. Long is the way to where I came from and the gate I exited dark. But heaven charge me if I have not spoken true!”
Astonished, Arakan let up for only a moment and the dream was gone and he was awake. In his arms, his friend’s body had grown cold and the room had grown dark. He stared down at the cold and lifeless body and breathed the stench of death.
Arakan wanted to follow the woman’s advice immediately. For who was more dear to him than Unarta? What offered the throne of Eridu, from the mountains in the north to and the mouth of the great river, to compensate for him?
Yet he had many counselors. One spoke to him and said, “My lord, my king. Shall you really abandon your people on the counsel of your enemy to seek an island beyond the sun? Who has ever heard such a thing.”
This seemed wise to Arakan. So he put Unarta in a box of stone. Then he set to work to build a great mausoleum, greater than all the tombs before it. Even for the mighty city of Eridu, it was a great work. Season followed season and year followed year. Arakan went out in war, he fathered sons and daughters, he made great his name. So between the mountains and the river’s mouth, the deserts and the westward sea, there was no king beside Arakan. In the lands beyond the mountains and the deserts to the east, there were no cities in those days, so it was that Arakan was called ruler of the world. Unarta grew in fame and glory at Arakan’s command. Everywhere Arakan was king, they said that Unarta was the greatest of all the men who had ever walked the earth.
Still, this gave no quiet to Arakan’s heart. For whenever he would do some great deed or see some strange sight, his heart would turn for Unarta. But Unarta was not there. Whenever this happened, Arakan tried to fill his heart with service to Unarta. So the mausoleum grew and grew, so that men journeyed far just to see the thing, so that it was greater than the palaces of kings and gods. Yet this did not cure the pain Arakan felt and he would not permit time to dull it. For in the passions of his heart, Arakan found himself assured that he had loved in truth.
After twelve years, the work was done. Nothing could be added to it without making it more ugly than before. In the thirteenth year, a survivor of a shipwreck came to Eridu to see the great mausoleum. There he marveled and spoke of it, saying, “Besides the black isle where no sun shines, there is nowhere upon the earth more wondrous than this mausoleum.”
Many found this man’s report astonishing, so that rumored filled that great city. It reached the ears of the king Arakan, who heard it with great alarm. For his heart had not settled within him. He gathered men to him and found the survivor and learned the route to the island.
What could stop him from going there? For though he was king over the broad earth yet he had lost the one thing which he had loved on it. Whoever has lost their heart to fate knows that they can never cease to turn for it, though they lived a hundred years.
So Arakan made ready the voyage and he sailed from the westward coast toward the isle. Hard were the winds and currents, so that he wondered if this were a trap of some enemy. Yet as they sailed, they found a place where the sky turned black as pitch, where neither sun nor moon shone.
They made landfall on the island, though the crew whispered bitter curses at doing such a foolish thing. Arakan led the way, bright lamps their only lights. They made their way into that island, across rocks where no grass grew. The great red tree too was hard to see, for neither sun nor star could offer light to it. Yet Arakan would not leave till they had found it.
Tall was the great red tree and yet its branches hung low and hungry to the earth. Few would approach for they all said, “This is an evil place already. The tree is only worse.” Yet when Arakan found that tree he rushed for it and searched about it till he found the hole in the earth.
It was a narrow thing, scarcely large enough for an ordinary woman standing let alone kingly Arakan. He carried on his back the goods for the sacrifice by which he might call up Unarta. So he squatted down and began to walk into the hole. For a long time, he thought to himself that death would close around him at any moment.
Deep in the hole under the earth, the cavern opened wide. The decline was so steep that even sure-footed Arakan almost fell. Soon he stood in what seemed a vast antechamber. High above the roof was cave-like but the walls were cut and formed. The torch in Arakan’s hand cast pure light on a floor like black glass.
The substance crept up onto the far wall in the form of a grand gate wide enough for a stampede of elephants. But behind the gate was a black cloud like water that seemed to swirl beyond the door.
Arakan lowered the lamb upon his back onto the black floor. There he poured the honey, the wine, and the water for the offering. There he built the altar and the fire and slit the throat of the goat. There he drew his silvered sword and waited beneath the belly of the earth.
What passed next was not hasty. For as the fire burned, the smoke grew, and the blood of the sacrifice dripped on the altar, Arakan waited. He waited till the fire had grown dim and he cursed himself for a fool. It was late and the sunless land above would not welcome him. Yet even so, his heart weighted him to the spot. For having come so far, he could not leave until he had seen Unarta and spoken with him and heard him tell of what was beneath the earth. So he waited longer.
When the matter seemed at a close, when the fire had nearly gone out, when hope at last surrendered in Arakan a mighty crash hit the gate. Soon, another pounded it, then another. Then the gate seemed to bend outward as if beneath a great weight. In the flickering light of the fire, something pale shifted beyond the gate.
Mighty Arakan, the landless man, the restless king, almost fled. For it sounded as a flood threatening to break the gate. Even the mighty cannot fight a flood. Death would come quick if the black water beyond flooded the antechamber. Yet Arakan had come so far. It seemed impossible to give up on the verge of victory.
Arakan set his feet and held up his sword of silver again. The door burst open but the room did not flood. A dark gray mist poured out of the gate and filled the room. Countless ghosts followed it and swarmed toward the blood which Arakan guarded.
For an ordinary man, the battle would have been impossible. But Arakan exceeded all other men in war, so his silvered blade held back the tide. Arakan heard distant cries of pain and fear from those he struck, but so muffled as if they were across a canyon. Still, mercy was not his weakness and he held his point till that ghost most dear to him appeared.
Barely perceivable among the pale host, Unarta moved in the air like a fly toward a carcass. He did not recognize Arakan nor pay him heed but when the sword did not cleave him, he flowed past him to the blood of the sacrifice. He drank it and the gray mist congealed around him like a cloak, giving him form and substance.
Unarta did not look better for his time in the grave. He stood tall still but his beard and hair seemed gray already and his arms and face had many scars. “Unarta?” whispered Arakan, his voice weakened by astonishment. “Is it truly you?”
Unarta straightened and turned to Arakan, his eyes dim in the dark of the cave. “Oh, Arakan, why have you come to this place? What have you done?”
“I have come in search of you, first and greatest of men.”
Unarta laughed at the words.
“Unarta, do not scorn my words. For since your death throughout the world, none is hailed as greater than you, none is more glorious in all the men of all the hosts of all the kings of the earth! Your tomb is the greatest of all tombs, none but the deathless gods more dearly honored. Here in the land of the dead you are doubtless a conqueror still.”
“Do not try to comfort me!” Unarta yelled, real anger in his voice. Though Unarta was a ghost, still Arakan raised his sword to fight Unarta's rage. Unarta did not lunge for him nor prepare for combat. “Do not speak to me of honor, do not speak to me of glory. Please, I beg you, do not speak to me of conquest.”
The dark mist of the room and ghosts still swirled. Arakan held back the ghosts with the threat of his sword. “But how can I do as you have asked? What has passed for you in these deep places to kindle your rage? Please, tell me that I may understand.”
“Will I tell you these mysteries? Shall I reveal to you what has been hidden from the foundation of the world?”
“If ever there were two to draw out deep mysteries, surely it was you and I, my friend. Surely it was Unarta and Arakan whose names are famous throughout the world.”
Unarta paced backward and forward as the ghosts continued to crowd the blood, to long for drink. Arakan was fierce and steady and fear cowed them yet they still menaced. “I will tell you these matters, though they are unhappy. It may yet profit you. I will tell you what I have seen, to warn you not to come this way.”
Unarta raised himself and looked the part of a teacher. “Look, on the day of my death I found myself in that ancient hall. The wealth of the grave was on display there. Golden was its splendor and ruby was its ornament. Nothing of steel or stone were found there. I was attracted to those lovely things in those days. Pale and dark sat Death upon his throne and he looked upon me with little interest or concern.”
“You who had slain his wife? Surely even Death must have some injured honor, some anger at that mighty deed.”
“Death is not a lover of anything, not of honor or peace or his wives. No, nothing wakes his heart. He lead me to that hall which was my heart’s desire, to a great house of glory and honor in which the dead dwell. Each day there, the dead rise up to battle, each evening the victors feast in a grand hall, and each night they find beautiful company to share their bed.”
Arakan did not understand this matter. “A fine reward for an enemy, who would have thought death merciful?”
“Nooo!” Unarta surged forward, moving as only he could faster than Arakan’s blade. His hand was on Arakan’s chest and throat, cold like winter wind. His breathless mouth was inches away from Arakan. But instead of anger, Arakan saw despair in his eyes. “Death is not merciful.”
“Does he fit the battles unfairly, so that you always lose?” Arakan wondered but then he considered more deeply. For was defeat that which would be bitterest to a man such as he? “No, but has he given you easy victory, has he made war into nothing more than the cutting of reeds?”
“No, in truth... in truth in that place I have all my desire. I have all that once I fought for in the sunlight where all joy is.”
“This is an astonishing thing. I have seen you in the desert places and taken refuge with you in the hills. How can you have gained all your desires when your eyes...” Arakan faltered. He could not speak of the despair he saw, not even in this dark place.
Unarta receded from Arakan, his body still almost flesh like. He turned his face aside in shame. “How many battles did we fight beneath the sun and his sister, my friend?”
“A half a hundred if it was one. Perhaps a hundred counted generously.”
“And when you number the days since my death, how many more will I have gained?”
Long years had passed Arakan by, long years indeed. For the counsel of the lion’s ghost had seemed unfriendly to him. “Many,” Arakan said, “Perhaps a hundred of our small supply.”
“Yes, that is what it seems to me. In the nights, I have had as many revels and as many beds. I cannot resist them, any more than I can stop the battles of morning. No drunkard at his cups is as enthralled as I in those halls, no lusty youth so easy.”
Arakan looked on his friend with pity then. “It would not be so if Death had not done you some harm. For you were a warrior and you knew discipline and you had strength at arms.”
“It seemed so,” Unarta said, his voice wistful. “It seemed so when we were planning war, when we broke the gate of Eridu, when we sat in the high palaces. Yet I see in the course of my life not discipline of spirit but the whip of appetite. For I acted only ever at the command of my restless heart.”
“Than take no meal tonight, begin tonight to test yourself and prove yourself ready.”
Unarta wailed at that, a great keening lament that shook even the ghosts that swirled now.
“Stop, why do you shriek at counsel, Unarta? Should you be unhappy forever?”
“I have tried, don’t you know that I have tried? Yet when enemy, meat, or lover is before me, I find myself enslaved to my desire. I kill, eat, and embrace, though I have grown sick of it. For till the world begin again, the dead cannot grow.”
Arakan stared at his friend, glorious Unarta. “Tell me then, what profit this might bring me if you have said it for my sake.”
“Do not trust in your reaving arm. Let your own heart be your enemy, conquer it while you walk beneath the sun.”
Arakan had asked his friend intending obedience. But this still seemed to him evil counsel. The shades he beat back again, “Conquer my own heart? Shall I reave my own crops and loot my own fortress? For the heart is man’s charioteer. All that man does, he does because his heart delights in it or hates it. You counsel me today to die and to be a slave.”
“I have revealed the hidden depths of the earth to you and you accuse me of ill? I speak not for your ruin but for your restoration. The heart is not the charioteer, but the horses. It carries a man but it does not know where to go.”
“Shall we condemn the heart which has carried us to glory?”
“Each night I feast among men who were great in name and deed before me and we are all equal here.”
“But Unarta, you have grown greater in renown than any and that city which bears your glory has grown greater than their cities.”
“Even if you speak truly, tomorrow some restless man will break the gates of some city and win a name for himself still greater. What will that be to me? Will that give pain to the dead or lighten my load?”
At this Arakan stopped his argument. For when he considered his own heart, he knew it to be true. For as he could never have rested in the second place of glory, so whoever came after him would be. True he was different than other men but time was long and the world was young.
“Yes, you see it truly. For even if we slept and woke nevermore, there would be no consolation in this. The heart pulls the chariot on, chasing all good things, but it is a blind horse. It cannot say enough, cannot stop short or turn from disaster. How else come you here to this place in the dark?”
“I have missed you my friend… Is this too a crime?”
Now even Unarta’s ghost took stock of this question. For there is no desire more common to man than to see that which he has lost, even if it be but once. "Arakan, do not think you do not gladden me or that I am unhappy to see you. Yet soon, your heart will be rent anew. All those aches which have grown common and ordinary will be new again and crueler than before.”
Arakan knew that Unarta spoke truly, but yet his heart commanded him and he could not look away. “Shall I not stay here? Shall I not remain? For though the land is sunless, yet you are more than the sun to me, my friend, companion of my soul.”
“And you are more to me! So will I send you hence. For even for the blood of bulls, I shall not flock here again, not if you call me day and night.”
“You shall come here, though, if you have before spoken true. For your will cannot master your appetite.”
Unarta scowled at Arakan and sighed, “You understand rightly. I will not be able to resist the blood which you shed. But please, I beg, for the love that is in my heart that you do not stay in this place. For Death visits here and keeps his counsel in this sunless land.”
Arakan looked down, away from Unarta’s scowl, and felt a fool. “Do you thus abjure me? Shall my love be broken for your sake?”
“Yes, my friend, please. Swear to me upon my tomb that you shall leave this place. Swear to live beneath the sun till Death should find you wizened with age.”
It was a hard promise that Unarta asked. Yet for Arakan's sake Unarta had spoken much and freely. Some mulish impulse urged Arakan to deny him, to summon again and again his shade, to visit here long in his counsel. But love was strong in Arakan’s heart, so he swore, “Companion of my soul, see for the love I have for you that I am obedient. I swear upon your tomb, I will be a man and I will master my heart. I will not enter here again nor seek your counsel. However dear you be, I shall not come again till I gain entry in the natural way.”
Unarta here smiled at last and in warmth they looked on each other. Yet the blood of the sacrifice was almost spent and the fire of the lamp and altar almost gone out. “Thank you, oh Arakan, for this kind deed. For all the days that I have past beneath the sun and beneath the earth, I have done no good. But if you keep this oath to me and do not break it, see, I will have done good at last.”
So they embraced, though the ghost was cold as the winter wind and the man as hot as any. The fire went out, the blood dried up, and the gate pulled closed. The ghosts were seen no more. Arakan left as he had entered, his body lightened from his burden and his heart heavy with his oath.
He returned to his men at camp, his ship at the shore, his port on the mainland, and the great city which he had built. He looked upon the great tomb he had built Unarta and the wondrous city which he ruled and he knew one day they would fall and be surpassed. At last the people had rest from their burdens. For no more did Arakan wage great wars or build great works. In the later days, he governed himself as much as his people. He betook to write and to read, to understand deep mysteries. He wrote laws that could govern wisely. So his name grew great and from across the sea and beyond the mountains strangers came to learn from him.
When his days had grown long, he commanded that these tablets be written. He considered carefully what each one should contain and he put down the words for the scribes to copy. Upon his deathbed, he spoke words. He said, “Look, I go to the grave. It is bitter to me to die, I expect no warm welcome. In spite of my kingship I have been happy in my later days. I hope many read these tablets and heed their warning. If any after me would be great, tell them glory is a harsh and faithless master."
He died and was buried in the tomb he had built for Unarta. Many came to marvel at it and said, “How glorious is the city which he has built, how marvelous his tomb!”