“Lake Van is in that direction,” I said to Ketu, pointing into the wind. “And beyond it is Ararat.”
His big soulful eyes widened at me. “You know the sacred mountain?”
“I lived near it once, with a hunting tribe…” My words dwindled away because that was all I could remember: the snow-capped mountain, steam issuing from one of its twin peaks, shrouding the heights in clouds.
“A hunting tribe?” he urged.
“It was a long time ago.” I tried all day to recall more, but the memories were locked away from me. I knew that Anya had been in that tribe with me, but there had been someone else. A man, the tribe’s leader. And Ahriman! I remembered the dark, brooding danger that he threatened. I remembered the cave bear that killed me for him.
A week later a new memory assailed me. We were near the ruins of ancient Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrians, where the temples of Ishtar and Shamash once rose in glory. And mighty Sennacherib, who claimed that he himself had invented crucifixion as the most agonizing way to put his enemies to death. I remembered the rows of crosses lining the road as we marched back toward his palace—the grandest that had ever been built, he believed.
These were the memories that assailed my sleep. I had been in this ancient tortured land before, many times, many lives ago. The memories seemed to rise up from the blood-soaked ground like ancient ghosts, shifting, indistinct, tantalizing and almost frightening in a way. Anya was at the core of all these half-remembered lives. The goddess had taken on human form time and again, for my sake, to be with me, because she loved me. Was she trying to reach me now? Was she trying to break down the walls in my mind that separated us?
“I will never achieve Nirvana,” I confessed to Ketu one night as we took our supper at a well-guarded caravansary. We were almost at Susa, at the end of the Royal Road. The Great King obviously had a firmer grip on the land here.
“It takes time,” Ketu said gently, sitting across the table from me. We had been given a private booth since Ketu had told the innkeeper that he was an envoy of the Great King. “It takes many lifetimes to reach the state of blessedness.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think I’ll ever get there. I don’t even think I want to.”
“Then you will continue to endure life after life. Continue to suffer.”
“Maybe that’s what we’re supposed to do.”
Ketu would not argue. “Perhaps,” was all he said, keeping his convictions to himself.
But he was curious. “Two weeks’ journey to the southwest is the mighty city of Babylon. What memories do you have of it?”
I concentrated, but nothing came forth.
“The hanging gardens?” Ketu prompted hopefully. “The great ziggurat?”
Something stirred at that. “Uruk,” I heard myself say. “Gilgamesh the king and his friend Enkidu.”
“You knew them?” His voice went hollow with awe.
I nodded, wishing that the memories would become clear to me. “I think I was Enkidu,” I said. “I know that Gilgamesh was my friend.”
“That was at the very beginning of time,” Ketu whispered.
“No,” I said. “It was long ago, but not at the beginning.”
“Ah, if only you could remember more.”
I had to smile at him. “You are not entirely desireless yourself, my friend.”
CHAPTER 20
We arrived in Susa at last, and a mighty city it was, but I saw almost none of it. We “Greeks” were told to camp outside the capital’s looming walls, while Ketu was escorted to the palace by a squad of the king’s soldiers.
He came back a few hours later, looking unhappy.
“The Great King and his court have already moved to Parsa. We must go there.”
Parsa was the springtime capital, a city unknown to Philip or even Aristotle. In time, Alexandros would call it Persepolis. We started out for Parsa, this time escorted by a troop of Persian cavalry, their horses glittering with gold-decorated helmets and silver-studded harnesses that jingled as we rode even farther east through gray-brown desert and hot, sand-laden winds.