To the Land of the Living Read Online Free PDF Page A

that? A look of adoration, almost the sort of look a woman might give a man when she has decided to yield herself utterly to his will.
    Gilgamesh had seen such looks aplenty in his day, from women and men both; and he had welcomed them – from women, at least. He scowled. What does he think I am? Does he think, as so many have wrongly thought, that because I loved Enkidu with such a great love that I am a man who will embrace a man in the fashion of men and women? Because it isnot so. Not even here in the Afterworld is it so, said Gilgamesh to himself.
    “Tell me everything!” the red-faced man was imploring. “All those exploits that I dreamed in your name, Conan: tell me how they really were! That time in the snow-fields, when you met the frost-giants daughter – and when you sailed the
Tigress
with the Black Coast’s queen – and that time you stormed the Aquilonian capital, and slew King Numedides on his own throne –”
    Gilgamesh stared in distaste at the man groveling at his feet.
    “Come, fellow, stop this lunatic blather now,” he said sourly. “Up with you! You mistake me greatly, I think.”
    The second man was out of the Land Rover now, and on his way over to join them. An odd-looking creature he was, too, skeleton-thin and corpse-white, with a neck like a water-bird’s that seemed barely able to support his long big-chinned head. He was dressed oddly too, all in black, and swathed in layer upon layer as if he dreaded the faintest chill. Yet he had a gentle and thoughtful way about him, quite unlike the wild-eyed and feverish manner of his friend. He might be a scribe, Gilgamesh thought, or a priest; but what the other one could be, the gods alone would know.
    The thin man touched the other’s shoulder and said, “Take command of yourself, man. This is surely not your Conan here.”
    “To the life! To the very life! His size – his grandeur – the way he killed that beast –”
    “Bob – Bob, Conan’s a figment! Conan’s a fantasy! You spun him out of whole cloth. Come, now. Up. Up.” To Gilgamesh he said, “A thousand pardons, good sir. My friend is – sometimes excitable –”
    Gilgamesh turned away, shrugging, and looked to his quarry. He had no need for dealings with these two. Skinning the huge beast properly might take him the rest of the day; and then to haul the great hide back to his camp, and determine what he wanted of it as a trophy –
    Behind him he heard the booming voice of the red-faced man. “A figment, H.P.? How can you be sure of that? I thought I invented Conan too; but what if he really lived, what if I had merely tapped into some powerful primordialarchetype, what if the authentic Conan stands here before us this very moment –”
    “Dear Bob, your Conan had blue eyes, did he not? And this man’s eyes are dark as night.”
    “Well –” Grudgingly.
    “You were so excited you failed to notice. But I did. This is some barbarian warrior, yes, some great huntsman beyond any doubt, a Nimrod, an Ajax. But not Conan, Bob! Grant him his own identity. He’s no invention of yours.” Coming up beside Gilgamesh the long-jawed man said, speaking in a formal and courtly way, “Good sir, I am Howard Phillips Lovecraft, formerly of Providence, Rhode Island, and my companion is Robert E. Howard of Texas, whose other life was lived, as was mine, in the twentieth century after Christ. At that time we were tale-tellers by trade, and I think he confuses you with a hero of his own devising. Put his mind at ease, I pray you, and let us know your name.”
    Gilgamesh looked up. He rubbed his wrist across his forehead to clear it of a smear of the monster’s gore and met the other man’s gaze evenly. This one, at least, was no madman, strange though he looked.
    Quietly Gilgamesh said, “I think his mind may be beyond putting at any ease. But know you that I am called Gilgamesh, the son of Lugalbanda.”
    “Gilgamesh the Sumerian?” Lovecraft whispered. “Gilgamesh who sought