| Young Kirkus A Story of Ancient Sumeria by James W. Bell © 2001 |
| Mashad grinned, leaned back in his chair, clasped his hands behind his head and studied the lad standing in front of him. “So you’re itching to become a trader?” “I am, sir, I am,” the young man answered. “That’s why I’ve come down to Uruk. I’ve got a mighty itch.” “What’s your name, son?” “Kirkus, sir. Kirkus-Enlil. I’ve come all the way from Bad-tibira.” “What gives you the idea you have the makings of a trader?” “I know traders, sir. Like Magir-Sin and Trader Tuk. I’ve learned to talk glib like them. And because I’m from Bad-tibira, I know metals—what things a smithy can do if he puts his mind to it. I’d make the Karum a sharp trader, sir—especially in metals.” “Well, you’re certainly glib enough. If you’re willing, son, we’ll give you a try. Of course, you’ll have to start at the bottom as an apprentice. Perhaps with Captain Shalum. His freighter, The Imeru, is moored now at the city quay. He’s hoping to sail for Magan in the morning at first call, but he needs one more hand—a cabin boy. You interested?” “You mean, go overseas with him, all the way to Magan?” Mashad nodded. “A week’s sail going and another week returning.” Kirkus smiled. “Sir, I’m more than interested. The captain need look no further for a cabin boy. Tell him I’ll come aboard his ship at dawn tomorrow.” * * * At dawn, Kirkus found the captain standing at the head of the gangway dressed in leather kilt and sandals. “Morning, captain,” he introduced himself as he came aboard. “I’m Kirkus-Enlil, your new cabin boy.” “Ah, Mashad has told me about you,” the captain welcomed him. “Says you’re mighty enthusiastic. I hope you’re prudent enough to be god fearing.” “You mean, to be careful of the gods?” The captain nodded and Kirkus continued, “About ten years ago, in the rush to pour an order, my father overturned a ladle of molten copper on himself. The molt fell on his leg. Burned it something horrible. Swelling set in and gangrene followed. I watched his agony. I was there when he died. Believe me, captain, I am careful. And I’ve been keeping my eye on the gods ever since.” “I like that, Kirkus-Enlil. You sound like you’ll do. We’re headed down to Magan, running along the coast, but bypassing Dilmun Isle, before going on to Magan. We’ve a cargo of textiles and dates to trade for copper ore. The gods may get angry if they should catch us bypassing Dilmun.” “How will we avoid them, sir?” “We’ve planned to come within sight of Dilmun after nightfall, when the zu-birds are asleep. We’ll turn and be well out to sea before dawn. If all goes as planned, the gods will never know we’ve passed them by. But that’s to wait and see. Go stow your stuff in the cabin, son, and report back. It’s almost first call. We need to hoist sail and get underway.” * * * Kirkus-Enlil quickly learned The Imeru. The freighter’s deck was a massive wicker raft resting on two giant pontoons of bundled reeds. The sail, tophung from a cleat at the apex of an A-frame that towered sixty feet above the water. It was a colorful affair, made of wool dyed Sumerian blue with a gold disk in the center to honor Shamash, the sun god. One of Kirkus’s jobs was to help the second mate raise and lower the sail. A rope was attached to the foot of each leg of the A-frame, a rope to be tied around each man’s waist. “Never go up the frame without it tied around your waist,” Captain Shalum cautioned Kirkus. “You work it on the leg of the frame just like on a palm. Keeps a man from falling. Out here, at sea, there’s no telling what will happen next.” Because there was no way to moor the freighter at sea, the crew worked in shifts to stay on duty day and night. Thus it was, on the third day out, Kirkus served as lookout on the A-frame. It was at the ending of a calm day, when the setting of the sun had already streaked the red sky with rays of gold, that he sighted land. “Land ho!” Kirkus shouted. He leaned out and called down to the deck, “Land dead ahead.” Captain Shalum was on the foredeck. “Holy Nergal!” he cursed. “We’ve come within sight of Dilmun before dark.” He ruminated on an impending catastrophe. Maybe it was too late for the birds to fly. He cupped his hands and shouted at Ankermun at the steering paddle rig on the transom, “Hard to port, Ankermun! Bring her round hard!” “Aye, sir,” Ankermun answered and pushed with all his might at the steering bar, but the freighter was large and ungainly. She took her time to respond. Only slowly did she lumber around. Cubit by cubit, she veered to the left, out toward the open sea, away from Dilmun Isle. * * * On Dilmun, Enzag summoned his sukkal. “Look! See that ship out there? She’s turning out to sea … to bypass us, I imagine. Can you make out what ship it is, Bedus?” “Looks like a trader’s ship, my Lord,” his sukkal answered. “One of those freighters going down to Magan. From its outline, it looks like Shalum’s Imeru.” “Damn Shalum!” Enzag swore. “Damn all traders. They’re bastards who set out to disturb our routine. They’re the scum of the Earth. They’ll introduce Chaos to the Earth yet. Have a zu-bird patrol sent out, Bedus. Instruct the birds to force that ship to harbor.” “My Lord, I don’t dare. The sun is already on the horizon. It’s near nightfall—nesting time for the birds.” “By the gods!” Enzag exclaimed. “Nothing seems in order anymore. But I will not allow mere mortals who dare ignore me to go unchallenged. Go, Bedus, seek out the fastest bird. Have him soar high into the sky where he can see the sun. Tell him to speed to the Edge of the Earth and summon South Wind. Have him tell South Wind I want the ship that lays to the east of Dilmun destroyed. Tell the bird to make sure South Wind knows it’s a trader’s ship. He’ll know how to talk to South Wind.” “As you command, my Lord,” Bedus said and departed to find a zu-bird. * * * Keeping the sun in view, the zu-bird flew to the Edge of the Earth where South Wind crouched. “Arise, South Wind!” the zu-bird called down to her. “A ship is trying to bypass Dilmun Isle. My Lord Enzag says it is a trader’s ship, a ship that belongs to those human mortals who would deny you your divine status, mortals who would strip you of your divinity and reduce you to nothing more than a natural phenomenon. Like you, South Wind, my Lord seeks vengeance upon those traders. Their ship is now plying the sea to the east of Dilmun. My lord sends you felicitations in the hope that you will unfurl your mighty wings and fly north to the ship. He hopes you will create a storm to sink it and drown those mortals who dare to defy the gods.” South Wind looked up at the zu-bird, her beady eyes taking in the golden tone of his furry head in the last rays of sunlight. She unfolded her wings and said, “I have crouched here far too long. “I shall answer the call of Lord Enzag because I welcome the opportunity to wreak my own vengeance upon those human mortals who call themselves traders. They shall feel the power of my wings. They shall bear the full brunt of my wrath. Nest here, zu-bird, till the sun rises on the morrow. I will be busy this night.” With majesty, South Wind rose, spread her black wings wide across the sea and spiraled her way up into the deepening dusk. * * * Kirkus’s shift lasted till midnight and he spent the time as lookout on the A-frame. Absent-mindedly, he witnessed a blackness arise on the southern horizon. Vaguely, he became aware that some of the stars on the horizon’s edge seemed to be winking out. He couldn’t believe his eyes and rubbed at them with the back of his hands. When he looked again, he saw more stars winking out. “I see a darkness on the southern horizon,” he called down to the deck. “Dead ahead, at some distance. I think there’s a storm brewing ahead.” Captain Shalum looked to the south and then up at the glittering stars overhead and the thin crescent of the dying moon in the west. “The stars are bright and the sea’s calm,” he called back. “Looks like a quiet night to me. Rest your eyes, son, and then maybe take another look.” Kirkus closed his eyes and, when he opened them, focused again on the southern horizon. Stars were still winking out, but more rapidly now. As he watched, the action seemed to be coming closer. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning streaked across the southern sky leaving behind a brief luminescence of its serpentine trail. He heard the dull rumble of distant thunder. “I see lightning, captain!” he called down. “Dead ahead. And I’m hearing thunder. I tell you, captain, there’s a storm coming.” Shalum had heard the thunder himself. “By Nin,” he exclaimed, “you’re right. You’d best come down and turn out the crew. Tell them to take their posts.” “But the sail – ” Kirkus called down. “Leave it be, son. You can’t get it down by yourself. Go turn out the crew and get their help. Get a move on.” Using the rope, Kirkus shimmied down the A-frame. At its foot, he untied himself and ran back to the cabin to wake the crew. As he did, the first gusts of wind reached the ship. “Storm’s coming!” Kirkus shouted into the cabin. “All out. Storm’s coming and the captain wants everybody at his post.” The crew followed Kirkus out. Flurries of wind had started sweeping the deck, the stronger spates caused the giant sail to billow out full, tipping the ship. “Let’s get that sail down!” Shalum shouted at them as they came forward. Kirkus and the second mate went to the A-frame, Kirkus on the starboard leg and the mate on the other. The wind started blowing continuously while lightning strikes lit the foaming whitecaps around them. BOOM … BOOM … BOOM … thundered the storm. Rather than tie the rope around himself, Kirkus hopped up on the first lateral and went up the A-frame by climbing the laterals. It was Kirkus who reached the frame’s apex first. As he did, a terrific gust of wind caught the sail full front, ballooning it and tipping the freighter dangerously to port. The second mate, still working his way up what was now the downleg of the A-frame, held on for life while Kirkus rode what had become the upleg. Holding on with one hand, Kirkus reached out for the sail’s guy with his other hand. He tried to pull it free of the cleat to drop the sail, but the sail was too filled with wind. He couldn’t budge it. The freighter topped the storm-raised swell and started down its backside, sliding into the dark depth of the trough behind. The plunge down into blackness was frightening, but Kirkus felt the sail go limp as the ship dropped into the depression and he used the opportunity to jerk the guy off the cleat. As soon as he did, the sail tore free and fluttered in the wind. The ship lurched and began climbing the oncoming swell. It came into the full force of the wind again, causing the loose sail to start whipping back and forth violently. One of its backlashes broadsided Kirkus and knocked him off the A-frame, tumbling him into the raging sea below. The mate saw Kirkus falling. “Man overboard!” he shouted down to the deck. “Man overboard!” “It’s Kirkus!” Captain Shalum shouted at the men. “Grab hold of his rope, men. Pull him back in.” Two of the crew seized Kirkus’s rope at the base of the A-frame leg. When they pulled on it, it came in all too easily “Captain, there’s nothing’s tied to it!” one of the crew hollered at Shalum. “Damnit to hell!” Shalum exclaimed. Then the ship lurched again as she started down into the next trough. He shouted at them, “Back to your posts, men! Keep her headed into the wind.” South Wind arrived and overflew the ship, flapping her great wings furiously. Her attack shook the freighter so violently that its wicker frame strained and groaned as it tossed about, facing first one way and then another. But with the sail down, she was riding it out like a raft. South Wind swooped again to attack the freighter and batted its A-frame with one wing to tip it over. But the freighter was too heavy for her and the sharp apex of the A-frame injured her wing. She retreated from the ship and found herself unwilling to try again. Dejectedly, South Wind turned south and flew back towards the Edge of the Earth with her bruised wing. “Damn those human mortals,” she cursed as she flew off. “Why did the gods ever ask Enki to create them anyway?” * * * Dawn rose with The Imeru far out to sea and no land in sight. After spending the morning as lookout, the second mate came down from the A-frame. “It’s of no use, sir,” he reported to Captain Shalum. “We’ve searched all morning without finding the least sign of young Kirkus.” The captain nodded. “Lost at sea,” he said. “Damned shame. If the young man hadn’t gotten careless, he might have lived to make a good trader.” He sighed. “Well, gather the crew on the foredeck. I’ll say a few words.” Shalum waited till they had gathered around him. “We lost a man last night,” he told them, “Kirkus-Enlil, a young man who had just joined us. In trying to protect the ship from the storm, he hurried up the A-frame to drop the sail, forgetting to tie the rope around his waist. He lost his head … and his life. It was his own fault that he died—a lesson to all of us. “But the storm that brought about his death was the result of the actions of a jealous god, one who demands full control of all shipping on the Lower Sea. As a memorial to young Kirkus-Enlil, let us remain aware that human mortals will never be safe from the gods so long as they dwell here upon the Earth with us. So be it.” Having finished the brief eulogy, Shalum took Kirkus’ bag and tossed it into the sea. Then he returned to his place on the bow and sighted the boat by the noonday sun. “Run up the sail, men,” he ordered his crew. “We’ve still quite a ways to go.” The End |
| There are many legends about traders and their venturing. Sumer was civilized, but it was surrounded by bandit-infested mountains on the east, a desert filled with hostile tribes in the west, an uncharted sea to the south and – everywhere - jealous territorial gods. A trader learned to travel abroad with caution and how to tread carefully. Any misstep would likely be his last. |