“Astrologer he may be, but Mushezib does not know everything,” said Darius.
“What do you mean?”
“He tells you that sooner or later every woman satisfied a man at the temple and was released from her duty. Not true.”
“Surely no woman was kept waiting at the temple forever.”
“Some women had no family to rescue them. There they sat, day after day, year after year, until they became toothless old hags, with no chance that any man would ever pay to lie with them.”
“What became of such women?”
“What do you think? Finally they died, never leaving the temple grounds, cursed by Ishtar for failing her.”
“What a terrible story!” Suddenly, all that I had seen and heard that day connected in my thoughts, and I felt a quiver of apprehension. “The ruined temple of Ishtar near the inn, and the lemur who supposedly haunts it—do you think . . . ?”
Darius nodded gravely. “Now you understand! Imagine how bitter she must be, still to be trapped in the place of her shame and suffering. Is it any wonder that she killed a man who dared to enter the grounds a few nights ago?”
“Let me make sure I understand—”
“No, speak no more of it! To do so can only bring bad fortune. We talk of something else. And when we go back to the inn, we do not walk by the temple again!”
My curiosity about the ruined temple and its supernatural resident was more piqued than ever. Darius read my face.
“Do not go back there, young Roman!” he said, almost shouting. “What do you think would happen, if the old hag sees a virile young fellow like you, barely old enough to grow a beard? The sight of such as you would surely drive her to madness—to murder!”
Darius had become so agitated that I quickly changed the subject.
We spent the rest of the day walking all over Babylon, and I found myself growing more and more dispirited. All the proud structures that had once made the city great were in shambles, or else had vanished altogether. Many of the citizens were in a ruined state as well—I had never seen so many people crippled by lameness or deformity. Apparently these unfortunates flocked to Babylon to take advantage of the charitable institutions maintained by the astrologers and sages, whose academies were the main industry of the city, along with the thriving trade in tourism.
At last, as twilight fell, we wended our way back to the inn, with Darius leading the way. I noticed that our route was slightly different from the one we had taken heading out that morning; Darius deliberately avoided walking by the ruined temple of Ishtar. To reward him for serving as my guide all day, I could do no less than offer him dinner, but to my surprise Darius declined and hurried off, saying he would return the next morning, when Antipater would surely be rested and ready for his own tour of the city. Could it be that Darius feared to be even this close to the old temple after dark?
As soon as he was out of sight, I turned aside from the entrance to the inn and walked up the street, past the derelict building next door, to the low wall that surrounded the old temple. It was the dim, colorless hour when shadows grow long and merge together, swallowing the last faint light of dusk.
It was not as easy to study the wall as it had been earlier in the day, and the first place I chose to make my climb proved to be unscalable. But on my second attempt, I found a series of toeholds that allowed me to reach the top.
My feet secure in their niches, I rested my elbows on the top of the wall and peered over. The temple was indeed in ruins, with not much left of the roof and gaping holes in the walls. Any decorative tiles or statues appeared to have been removed. The wall of the derelict building next door and the city wall along the river enclosed the courtyard next to the temple, which was all in shadow; all I could see were some withered trees and fragments of building blocks and paving tiles. But amid this jumble, as my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I saw a row of waist-high objects that looked like the circular drums of a column. It occurred to me that these might be low-backed chairs carved from solid blocks of stone—too heavy for looters to carry off, I thought, or perhaps the ceremonial chairs had been left there because . . .
Seated on one of the chairs, almost lost in shadow, I saw an uncertain silhouette. It was impossible to tell whether the figure was facing me or had its back to me—until the figure rose from the chair and began walking very slowly toward me.
My heart sped up. All I could hear was the blood pounding in my head. The uncanny silence of the approaching figure unnerved me.
I opened my mouth. For a long moment, nothing came out, and then, my voice cracking and ascending an octave, I heard myself say: “Speakee Greekee?”
The figure at last made a sound—a hideous laugh more horrible than the crunching of broken bones. My blood turned cold. The figure reached up with clawlike hands and pushed pack the moldering wreath that obscured its face.
Had the thing once been a woman? It was revolting to look at, with hair like worms and eyes that glinted like bits of obsidian. Its pale, rotting flesh was covered with warts. Broken teeth protruded from the black hole of its gaping mouth. The thing drew closer to me, filling my nostrils with the stench of putrefaction. Its low cackle rose to a sudden shriek.
I scrambled back from the wall, desperate to get away. One of my feet slipped from its toehold and I tumbled backward.
THE NEXT THING I KNEW, I WAS COMING TO MY SENSES, PROPPED UP IN A chair in the common room of the inn.
“Gordianus, are you all right?” said Antipater, hovering over me. “What happened to you? Were you set upon by robbers?”
“No, I fell . . .”
“In the middle of the street? That’s where Mushezib says he found you. It’s a good thing he happened by, or you’d still be lying out there, at the mercy of any cutthroat who happened by.”
Through bleary eyes, I saw that the astrologer stood nearby. Farther back, a few other guests were gathered around. The innkeeper was in their midst, standing a head taller than anyone else. He frowned and shook his head. Talk of robbers was bad for business.
“No one attacked me, Antipater. I simply . . . fell.” I was too chagrined to confess that I had attempted to scale the temple wall.
“The lad must have the falling sickness. Common among Romans,” said one of the guests, turning up his nose. This seemed to satisfy the others, who drew back and dispersed.
Antipater wrinkled his brow. “What really happened, Gordianus?”
Mushezib also remained. I saw no reason not to tell them both the truth. “I was curious. I wanted to have a look at the old temple of Ishtar, so I climbed to the top of the wall—”
“I knew it!” said Antipater. He scowled, then raised an eyebrow. “And? What did you see?”
“Ruins—there are only ruins left. And . . .”
“Go on,” said Antipater. He and Mushezib both leaned closer.
“I saw the lemur,” I whispered. “In the courtyard of the temple. She walked toward me—”
Mushezib made a scoffing sound. “Gordianus, you did not see a lemur.”
“How do you know what I saw?”
“A young man with a powerful imagination, alone in the dark in a strange city, looking at a ruined courtyard, which he has been told is haunted by a lemur—it’s not hard to understand how you came to think you saw such a thing.”
“I trust the evidence of my own eyes,” I said irritably. My head had begun to pound. “Don’t you believe that lemures exist?”
“I do not,” declared the astrologer. “The mechanisms of the stars, which rule all human action, do not allow the dead to remain among the living. It is scientifically impossible.”
“Ah, here we see where Chaldean stargazing comes into conflict with Greek religion, not to mention common sense,” said Antipater, ever ready to play the pedant, even with his young traveling companion still barely conscious after a dangerous fall. “As they rule supreme over the living, so the gods rule over the dead—”