The hotel he and Silvia had claimed was suitable. For this day, it was luxurious, but the smell was offending. It smelled of human scum and their damned technology that had overtaken the world he had once called his. It was everywhere. The retched scent seeped out of the very floor on which he walked. It even emanated from his beloved, and from his own foul garments that humans had the nerve to call clothing. It was disgusting and there was no escaping it. The vermin had infected every corner of the world, from their putrid metal forests, to the greenery in the furthest reaches of the earth.
Silvia had turned down the lighting in the room, something he was thankful for. Why the world of humans needed such brightness was beyond him. As the gods had wished, the night was supposed to be dark, but the vermin of the planet did not see it as so. They wished to recreate the sun in the darkest of skies. They had almost succeeded.
His golden eyes drifted to where the previous occupants of the room were now decomposing. Their flesh was a pale blue, the red that had been left on their necks drying a dark brown. Fleshy tongues fell out of the corners of their mouths, for their mouths were open in fright. Their eyes too, were open wide, staring at him. Gilgamesh found it unacceptable. With a few long strides, he closed their eyes, and tossed them face first on to the ground. No such inferior beings should be allowed to look at him or his beloved in such a manner, even in death. He was a God-King of an ancient kingdom, and he deserved respect.
Turning back, he held out his dark hand to his companion. “Come, Silvia.” Taking her hand, he led her to the bed, which was mussed from the humans’ actions before he had entered. He was thankful that he had stopped them from mating. He wasn’t sure he could take that smell on top of the already putrid smell.
In smooth movements, he lay down and pulled Silvia in his arms, smelling her smell underneath all the others. It was still as sweet as it had been when he’d first met her, and for that he was glad. It was comforting, and made feelings stir in him. After all the time asleep or away from her, it pleased him to know that deep down, she was still the same woman that he had met and made so many centuries before now. Into her hair, he whispered phrases he thought he would never utter.
“Silvia, I have a tale to tell. I need you to take of me.” One hand bared his muscular throat. He closed his eyes as he was bitten, and felt completely calm as the blood was slowly drained from him. He felt the nostalgia wash over him, something that had not happened in an age, and felt compelled to tell his history.
“I was not born the man you think you know. I was not Roman, or an Egyptian, or a Celt, or any of these cultures that are well known to humans nowadays. I was not an Aztec, or Akadian, or even a Babylonian, though I was, perhaps, the forefather of the latter. I am older than any other immortal I have ever met, and come from a time where very little is known by present day humans. My name, however, has survived the ages. No, not the name Aeschylus I took two thousand years ago, but my true name, Gilgamesh, God-King of Erech.
“In my youth, I had been a mighty warrior, unmatched in skill. I trained hard, and in my twentieth year of existence, I took the throne of the Sumerian kingdom of Erech. I ruled over the land, protecting it from those who would seek to take it from me. I was an iron fist that ruled the nation with great care and devotion. None could match me. It was only a few months after I became monarch that I took a wife, and her name was Silili.
“She was beautiful, but not the most beautiful woman I would see in my time upon this earth. Her figure was small, and she was lithe from being a dancer, though nowadays, humans would not call her as such. I hoped that she would bear me many sons, but alas, that was not to happen. She was barren, and would produce me no children. I was enraged when I found out, going so far as to ban her from my home for a short while. This soon passed, and she was allowed to return, though never again did I touch her.
“My reign was going well, despite the old age that was dawning fast upon me. In my thirty-ninth year, word circulated among the people of Sumer, telling of a prophecy in which I was named. It stated that Enlil, our god of heaven and earth and the second most powerful deity in our pantheon, would make me an unmatched warrior, and this I believed to be true. This however, was not the sole story that the foreseeing told of. The other was much harsher, and one I did not so easily accept.
“I was to die.
“This was something I did not wish for. To die when my empire was flourishing? At the time, I was half tempted to curse the gods, and execute all the tongues upon which the cursed prophecy had danced, but only my wife Silili stopped me. In secret, away from everyone, she told me that she believed it to be my destiny for something greater. What, she could not say, and dared not lest she invoke the gods’ wrath upon herself. I embraced her for the first time in almost nine years that night.
“It was only a fortnight after this that I was met by a strange creature while out at night. I did not see his face, but I believe I thought him to be a god. This was my fate, and I would accept it. To this day, I know not if that being that spawned me was a god or not, but it was only much later that I found others like myself. It took nearly a millennia, but I am getting ahead of myself.
“I woke up the next night, thirsting for blood. My wife had assembled all the servants for mourning in front of my chambers, and when I emerged, they all bowed to me. Silili was the first to sacrifice herself for me, and the last word she uttered was my name, but that did not matter. I went on and on until I had killed every single servant that occupied my house. I hid, and the next morning, I heard it proclaimed that I was a god of the netherworld. In my foolishness, I believed it to be so.
“At this point in time, it was obvious to me that I could no longer stay king of Erech. I was much beyond that. I knew not what to do, but knowledge filled my head that was not my own. I took off into the night, and vanished from history, leaving people to think me a god. Who was I to say that they were wrong?
“The name of Gilgamesh had become commonplace, so I needed to have a knew name. I took the common Sumerian name of Naram-Sin. For almost six centuries, I prowled the land, giving my name only to those that I fed upon, and because of this, I received little complaint.
“I do not know the precise date, but one night, I finally grew bored of my native homeland. I’d been there too long, far too long. The population was beginning to fear me, and I could tell that each night, they wondered who would be next on the god Gilgamesh’s plate. I grew tired of this fear, and so I moved to Akkad.
“There, I met a young man, quite like myself when I had been his age. I – for reasons even I do not know – took him under my wing, so to speak, and taught him all that was to be learned of my kingdom. He learned our mythology, our language, and our writing. When he – Sargon was his name – became the first king of this territory, he utilized all that I had taught him setting in motion actions that would lead to an empire that would go down in history. Mainly, Babylon.
“Upon his death, I traveled to this famed great city, though when I was there, it was not what people of this age imagine when they picture Babylon. The tower of Babel had not yet been built, and there were no hanging gardens. Babylon fell from the hands of one ruler to the next, names I am sure you can find on any text of the subject. The names are not important now. They have long since escaped me.
“It was just my luck that traders were heading to the land of Egypt. For a price, they let me go with them, keeping to the shadows during the day. It was many months before we reached our destination, for we had to travel through the Arabian Desert. I had to feed from one trader at a time while he slept, always erasing his memories. It was a painful time, but I survived it, and I ventured for the first time into the land of Egypt.
“I stayed hidden in the shadows for quite some time, studying the temples and cities in the cool twilight of the night. I encountered many things, a many reminded me of my homeland. It was not even a year later that I found that I wished to be a part of this world, not watch it from the shadows of their gods’ statues. I came out as a noble by the name of Nebtawi.
“It was hard at first, but I had a fortune that I had amassed over the ages, and I fit in with relative ease. It was spread that I had an illness that prevented me from going out in the day, but at all the night festivals I was seen. I took another wife, and this time, her name was Shepsit. We were married, under the reign of Pharaoh Thutmose. I was very open with her, and told her what I was. She, like many before her, believed that I was a god. I told her that I would have to punish her if she deceived me. She was honourable, and never told my secret.
“One day, she took a child off the streets – a baby – and proclaimed it Nebtawi II, a plan that I would not have conceived of. She showed him off to many of the people in our area, and then let me feed off of it. When she died, I took a new name, this time, the one of my supposed son, Nebtawi II.
“During my time as the second of that name, I met a man, a servant of mine, who discovered my secret. He was not frightened, and he served me faithfully. It was then that I decided to make him one of our kind – not out of love, no, never that. Tarek – the servant – was little more to me than a helper of sorts. He would take care of the documentation, and make sure that my charade went undetected.
“I had taken several more of these names by the time Akhenaten came to be Pharaoh. I saw his mutilation of the culture, as he proclaimed that all the other gods, save the Sun Disk God Aten, were false, and that all prayer and rituals should be preformed to this Aten. There was a great cry from all of Egypt, but the Pharaoh would not hear of it. He left Thebes, and created a new city. I followed silently.
“Often it has been said that the most beautiful woman in the world was Nefertiti. Having seen her, I can attest to this fact. She was beautiful, but she was naïve, trusting in her husband and his ways. She did nothing to try and change his mind, and was one of his avid supporters.
“When the retched Pharaoh died, I was one of the first to approach Nefertiti. I came to her in the middle of the night, and told her to renounce all that her husband had said and go back to the old ways. She refused, and summoned the guards, but I escaped easily. In the next few days, she disappeared completely, and I could not say that I was surprised.
“It was as the reformation back to the old ways was occurring that I decided that Egypt had long since lost its captivation with me, and I wished to move on. To Tarek, my faithful servant, I gave half of my riches, and told him to do as I had done, and scour the world instead of staying in one place. I do not know if he heeded my words, for I left him, and went to a country I had heard much about, Greece.
“I claimed a villa in the country, not too far from Sparta, and took the name Avitus. When a foolhardy prince took the king’s wife, Helen, supposedly the most beautiful woman on earth to Troy, the soldiers came to my villa to try and recruit me. I eluded them, but was curious about this war. In secret, I stowed away on one of the thousands of ships that set sail for Troy, doing as I had done on the way to Egypt. When we reached shore, I waited until nightfall, and then emerged.
“For nine years, I watched as both sides fought, over and over. I picked off wounded soldiers during the night, and that was my primary sustenance. I saw Achilles and Hector battle, until Hector was defeated. While Achilles was a strong warrior, I did not believe that he was the best in the world.
“At times, I would venture into the city of Troy, and watch Priam’s council discuss courses of action. Once, I laid eyes upon this Helen who had set said a thousand ships. I was curious about her golden hair, but other than that, she was not unlike many striking women I had seen in my immortal life. I did not think she deserved the title that had been bestowed upon her.
“I watched with mild curiosity as the Greeks used Odysseus’ contraption to get inside the walls of Troy. I watched the Trojans hold a festival in its honour, and ignore the sayings of the Princess Cassandra, a prophetess doomed never to be believed. When the Greeks immerged, she was one of the prizes, while most the rest were killed. The mighty Achilles was killed by arrows - one to his ankle in particular - and Helen pleaded for her life, and was granted mercy.
“I traveled to Persia for a short while, and thought it was a place rich with culture, I did not much enjoy it, and so ventured on to Greece once again, pretending to be a child of a Greek father, and an Egyptian mother, so as to account for my unusual colouring. While there, I saw a dramatist by the name of Aeschylus, and when he died a decade later, I took his name, him being one of the few dramatist that ever captured my attention.
“From here, I went on to Rome. I saw the first of the Punic Wars, and then the treaty that was signed. I began to watch Hannibal Barca. When he commenced the second Punic War, I saw him slaughter Romans, and fed off his soldiers. I was an outsider until one day, when I caught sight of a sixteen year old girl that had been taken prisoner for Hannibal.”
As this point, Gilgamesh took a short intermission, brushing some hair out of Silvia’s face and placing a small kiss on her hair, hinting at exactly who this girl had been, but he said nothing about the matter, instead continuing on with his tale.
“I watched as she was rescued, and married a Roman soldier. She seemed happy with him, so I did not interfere. Hannibal was defeating after a manner, and I devoted my time to watching her. I saw her sorrow as her only child died, and later, more tears when her husband did so as well. Many men approached her, but she refused them all, and at this point, I decided that I would finally make an appearance in this woman’s life.
“She attracted me as no other woman had. When we met, I wanted to claim her as mine, but withheld. I did not have to wait long, for she invited me over to her manner soon thereafter, and I created her into what I was. I loved her as I had loved no other.
“I stayed with her for five centuries, until I was compelled to travel again. I left while she was asleep, believing it would be better for her not to be caught up in my insanity. I traveled to a Roman land, and saw these Celts. I witnessed the Queen Boudicca put up a grand fight against the Romans, but was ultimately defeated. I felt for her, but did nothing.
“I wandered through Europe for a time, until a band of humans caught onto me. While I was asleep, they imprisoned me in my coffin, and set me adrift on the ocean. I do not know how long I was at sea, but when I finally reached shore and broke free, I found a world unlike any I had ever seen before. The natives confronted me, and when they tried to attack me, I killed one of them using the Blood Power that I have. For the second time in my long existence, I was worshipped as a god. This time I was Mectlantecutli, the Lord of Hell.
“I received sacrifices until, for the first time, I had the urge to sleep. They built me a fine tomb, and I was encompassed in it until a group of humans dug it up. I killed them, I killed them all, save for a small girl. I let her live.
“Traveling through this new land was degrading. The air was putrid, and humans had overtaken everything. I took the Spanish name, Ambrosio, and when I had fully awoken, I felt you. I took off towards you, and eventually came upon this place.
“But unlike you, I have never again felt Tarek. I believe he must be dead. However, in this city, there is a power akin to his, but different. The only conclusion is that he made a childe, and that childe is here, in this very city.”
Gilgamesh held Silvia closer. “I apologize for not telling you sooner. I did not feel you were ready for such a revelation.”
Silvia looked upon Gilgamesh with disbelief…How…how…how could he not have told me? How could he have lied to me all these years? All my life? I was his only daughter, I was his only bride! Red tears poured down her cheeks….Silvia felt so…lied to, so betrayed by Aeschylus…No. Not Aeschylus anymore, he’s Gilgamesh now. And I don’t know anyone called Gilgamesh.
Silvia wiped her tears and stood up, and looked down upon him. He was so beautiful to her. She desired him in every moment, every bit of her loved him with an uncontrolled passion. She thought that she’d known him through and through, and she’d known Aeschylus had loved her. But, did Gilgamesh? He was the Lord of Hell, how could she be sure that he wasn’t the Lord of Lies, of Deceit as well?
She turned around and walked to the window, trying to control her thoughts, trying to forse herself to speak clearly. She wanted to know why he’d not told her…why he’d lied to her, telling her that she was his only blood-child when in reality there was another? He’d said that he didn’t love the other…but, she’d lied to him once about him, could he have lied to her again? Silvia didn’t want to know…she didn’t want anything to do with this…Gilgamesh.
“Gilgamesh,” she said clearly after a few minutes. “Aeschylus, whatever you call yourself now. I only have one question to ask you before leaving you to live your immortal life in enternal misery; Why did you lie to me? We spent five hundred years together and you never felt the urge to tell me? Even when I was blindly in love with you? Why did you tell me that I was the only one, when in fact I have a blood brother, and even perhaps a blood-neice? Why so much lies, Gilgamesh? Why so much hiding? I had loved you, and would’ve understood, though now, I cannot be sure, because after two millennia I cannot be sure if you’re the same man I tell in love with in my Manor in Rome, after the death of my child and husband. Why, why do many lies?”
