Pliniad V: Non Sum, Non Curo

“amuwa-za tati-wa-mu tiya-za-tta” Pleaded the kneeling shade.

“ahnek Azbet” Repeating the woman across from him.

Pliny and Pompanianus stood at the headwaters of a tributary of the great river. From where they stood, it resembled something closer to a creek breaking off the mighty river was a forested hill of wailing shades. But here at the small water full Queen of Black robes stood, directing them to the stream where the two shades kneeled on each side.

Two shades knelt upon the stones facing one another, repeating their ritual.

“nanu-wa wala-ssi-ha” pleaded the first.

“Amet bed.” Delcared the other.

They splashed water upon themselves.

“The River Lethe is vast,” Pompanianus said to Queen Isis, their guide. The goddess Omar Morai fidgeted uncomfortably behind her.

“Indeed, and with many tributaries.” she replied somberly. “This is where your path begins. The faces will seem more familiar, the farther down you travel.”

The Queen kept her sistrum tucked away in a pouch, such a symbol had no place upon this river.

“Does it surprise you?” she asked.

“No. It is exactly as Virgil described it. “ Pompanianus looked again at the figures repeating their endless lustratio. “I suppose I am more surprised by who I see than what I see.”

“But Pliny,” he continued, turning to his friend looking past them. “Why are we here? You know what you are going to see. You know your Virgil as well as anyone.”

Pliny turned to his friend, who stared at the figures around them beneath the starless sky.

“I think I do know what I will see,” Pliny said Egyptian torch in hand. “But I still wish to see it anyway. That is the difference between us.”

Pompanianus scoffed, then answered.

“No. I know what I do not wish to see. That is the difference between us.”

The Senator then turns to the Queen of the Underworld.

“But I have to ask you. I’ve been told The Egyptians were a wise people, especially when it comes to matters of death.”

“Does flattery from a Son of Aeneas imply agreement?” The queen asked.

“If you were so, why tolerate this? O Hearer of prayers, black-robed Isis, the Merciful?” His voice carried a sour not as he gestured towards the weeping river. “The Queen of rivers and winds and sea controls and tolerates this Hellenic irony towards shades? Your just Anubis allows eternal self punishments?”

The Queen approached Pompanianus.

“I made the right to be stronger than gold and silver.

I ordained that the true should be thought good.”

He flinched as though preparing to be struck down. The queen, with her right hand, touched his ear. Then spoke carefully and calmly, as if speaking to an overly inquisitive child.

“I devised contracts that bind souls together,
I assigned the peoples their tongues.”

Pompanianus crouched down to the level of the figures staring at their own reflection in the gloomy bank. As he listened again their words became clear.

“My duties took me from you,” pleaded the man.

“Do I die abandoned?” Asked the woman.

Pomponianus looked up to the queen. He and Isis stood on opposite sides of bank; Pompanianus behind the man. Isis the woman. The queen continued.

“I made the beautiful and the shameful to be distinguished.

And that nothing should be more feared than an oath.

I have delivered the plotter of evil against other men into the hands of the one he plotted against.

I decreed mercy to suppliants.”

“I did not want to go.” Said the man from Asia minor.

“I die alone.” Said the queen crying beside him.

Pompanianus looked at the two with new eyes, and realization. Wonder became anger.

“This is mercy? This is healing?”

“The river of forgetting is a cleansing salve. For many carrying the burdens of their life it is my only grace. To quench their miseries in forgetting, and strength for the journey to paradise, or clarity to torment.

“My duties took me from you.”

“Do I die abandoned?”

“I did not want to go.”

“I die alone.”

He looked to his ancestor, and tried to shake the man out of it, his body immovable like stone. Pompanianus stood up to confront the queen.

“These two have been here longer than the founding of the city! What clarity have you given them? What strength? They have been here for centuries!”

Isis walked to the middle of the river, and kneeled, her black robes only rustling against the stream as though by a breeze. With her hands she grabbed the hands of both the man and the woman, and holds them upright. The water cupped in their hands spills out. The once bronze olive skin of the levantine woman, revealed itself sickly pale in the soft light coming from the Queen goddess. The man’s face in the light revealed the long life of regret he lived. The woman pauses, and the look of nothingness leaves. She looks around her and sees the man across from her. She screams. She cries. The man looks to the queen and weeps, his mouth tries to say her name but chokes on his own words.. The woman turns away and curses in phonecian tongue. The man prays in an unknown one. She fights for her hands, but the goddess holds firm. They both rebel against her grip and throw themselves faces into the flowing waters. The Queen of Waters steadies them; as their faces become blank once more.

"The betrayed, the betrayer, the abandoned. There is no strength to offer for those who know not where to go. There is no clarity for those who saw their world shattered.” Queen Isis stands again, giving one last sorrowful look at the two figures. She spoke not as divine figurehead, but weary caregiver. “For such shades, this is my only salve."

“My duties took me from you.”

“Do I die abandoned?”

Pomponianus turned away from the two, and towards Pliny and Morai the goddess. Pliny recognized the change in expression. His face a mix of curiosity and concern.

“Who were they? What did the queen tell you.”

Pomponianus shook his head, and recited verse. “Sed me Iussa deum,” the classic verse spilled out of his mouth, but without any of the care and flourish he once would have given it. Pliny nodded in understanding.

“I did not want to go.”

“I die alone.”

Pomponianus gestured for them to walk, now eager to leave the headwaters.

The words faded from Pompmonianus’ ear as the search party walked away from the headwaters.

The blonde-haired goddess paid no attention to the two men nor to the other shades moaning along the river like weeping willows. Instead, she read from a scroll Queen Isis had given her, trying to make sense of it.

“This underworld is so organized. Strange to think there are gods who take pride in these miserable realms.” She said, her tone wholly mismatched with the somber air.

Pomponianianus looked back in the distance, to Queen Isis, standing at the headwaters. The difference between the two goddesses almost cutting.

“What punishments and rewards does your world offer in the afterlife?” Pompanianus asked.

The woman stared outward, as though she had never been asked that question before.

“I don’t know,” she said. “We never really did anything with that.”

She gestured.

“Come on. This way.”

Pompanianus, unsure what to make of such a response, joined Pliny. Queen Isis remained behind, waving farewell as she lingered at the rocks of the river where the two shades continued their ritual.

As they walked, Pompanianus finally asked:

“You don’t know? What do you mean you don’t know about the afterlife?”

“Well,” she said, “it wasn’t really a concern to the Great Hero. And I guess we figured, if there were other worlds that needed our dead, they could just take them. It wasn’t really our concern. Science was, life was. Death is Demon Lord stuff.”

“Demon Lord?” Pliny asked begging clarification.

“Yeah. Bad guy.” The goddess spoke matter of factly, as if that answered his question. ”Besides, why would you want something like this? It's so sad. In my realm I would rather people think not death is not the end, or even better, not think about it at all.”

“That seems crueller,” was Pliny’s response.

Further down the river, the shades grew more familiar. While not personally recognizable, but unmistakable from history. The voices too changed from incomprehensible to archaic.

Pompanianus was the first to break the silence. His eyes looked around at the forest of shades around him.

“Do you think the great Romulus is here too?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps his brother too.”

“Maybe he simply passed by here on his way to join his father Mars.”

“Perhaps we already passed him, and couldn’t tell him from the others muttering in Archaic Latin.”

There was silence as they trudged along, their feet walking along the paving stones emerging from the river. The hair and visages of the figures changed. Beards disappeared, hair shorter. The resemblance to the statues flanking the Forum of Rome was uncanny.

“I blame The Greeks” Pompanianus said.

Pliny protested, but humored him. “Good to hear, for a moment, I was worried this experience had taught you something.”

They stood before the unmistakable visage of a balding man with a large nose and pronounced chin. Like the others, he knelt eternally, washing his face.

“Not you too, Brutus.” Said the balding man.

“It was for Rome,” said the shade across from him.

“You scholars defend them,” Pompanianus muttered. “Philosophers, walking back and forth, hounding us like dogs, chastising us from your gardens, preaching at us from your porches.. All to tell us death is meaningless that you left us no preparation for it. These men should be in Elysium. And He is supposed to be a god.”

Pompanianus looked downstream. An aged man knelt near Caesar. Though haggard, the face was recognizable from the marble carvings of his youth. The man of marble who made Rome in his image.

The kneeling man dipped his hands again into the river.

“Have I played the part well?” he murmured as he washed. “Applaud as I exit.” Pomponianus pointed his hand towards the shade as though it proved his point.

“All this philosophy about the meaninglessness of death,” Pompanianus continued. “Not enough about heroes. And will.”

“So what, if they are supposed to be gods?” the blonde woman asked, irritated by the conversation and seeking to move things along. “Whose fault is that but theirs?

“They were already proclaimed gods.” Pompanianus explained.

“Maybe their thrones are awaiting them. Maybe they just never got to them. Maybe you should go tell them.”

Pompanianus crouched beside August ones. They paid no attention to him, continuing their ritual.

“I Live!” Proclaimed one.

“What a mess I made!” Stuttered another. Their wives and children all alongside. Staring at the water, refusing to leave.

Pliny looked at the dynasty washing itself of its past and spoke to Pompanianus. “Did any of these figures lack in worship? Were they ever in doubt of their greatness?”

He hesitated. He did not have the courage to address either the figures or Pliny.

“Lets keep looking please.” The goddess marched on ahead. “I don’t know why we have to find this girl, they can have a whole harem on mine.” Her voice almost petulant.

Pomponianus places a hand on Pliny’s chest as to calm him.

“It is clear to me she does not care for things that stay. All are interchangeable. Including us.”

Pliny nods.

From the distance came another voice. Pliny turns the torch towards the sound of the voice.

“What an artist dies in me.” It says in self pity.

Pliny and Pompanianus exchanged a sardonic glance. Pliny chuckles.

“Should he be a god too?” Pliny asked in solemn triumph. “Perhaps we should help him claim his throne. Remind him of his heroic deeds. Rome needs his divine guidance.”

“Point taken,” Pompanianus replied bitterly.

Before they continued walking, Pompanianus found the figure between the August one and The Mad man, and with a single action, kicked the figure. The somber lecher fell into the water, before pulling himself out, and continuing his ritual.

“Was that necessary?” Pliny asked.

“What’s wrong, Philosopher? No harm was done to the man who won’t remember it. Or do I need Plato’s magic ring to be allowed such things?

“No good came from it either.”

“For me? No. For my father? Of course.”

They walked further until the goddess waved them over.

“Perhaps Pliny the queen is right, this is not just grace for them. It’s grace for the living.”

“How so?”

“What would Rome do if we should see our heroes come on Parentalia, restless and raging from the underworld. Watch our history rage against us every year?”

Pliny seemed only to be half listening, then began to look at the water at his feet, seeing his reflection in the black glass current.

“How fitting would it be, if I joined our patronage, and sat beside her.” Pliny spoke only to himself. “I already failed my part, what cruelty to make me play again?”

Pomponianus came forward to his friend, and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You have been given a duty, do not reject it now to wallow with these.” Pomponianus tried to find a label for the figures they past but could find a term both honorific and vulgar.

“Besides, I haven’t seen our old friend Vespasian here. Have you? If you stayed here, you would be letting two gods down.”

Pliny smiled, but refused to look up.

“Hey! I think I found her.” The goddess interrupted them, she spoke with unnerving enthusiasm, while waving the papyrus in her hand like a flag. Pliny took a breath to collect himself, while Pomponianus took the lead.

A shade knelt like the others, splashing water upon her face and drinking from the Lethe.

“Serapis has given permission for me to take her,” the goddess said. “Just tell me if it’s her, Pliny, and we’re ready to go.”

Pompanianus’ face fell. He shook his head and turned away.

Pliny could not stop staring.

“Yes,” he whispered. “That’s her.”

He knelt beside the shade.

“But Rectina. Do you recognize me?”

Tina looked at him. Tilted her head. Met his eyes.

“Pliny,” she said.

Her face contorted in sudden pain. A scream built within her. She shoved him away and cupped her hands into Lethe and drowned the scream into the water.

Her face went blank.

She looked at him as though seeing him for the first time.

Pliny stood slowly.

“There is no recognition,” he said to the goddess. “I decline. You may take us to your world whenever you wish.”

“Oh, no, no, no, wait!” she protested. “We went all this way into this accursed forest so you could pick up your boon.”

Pompanianus leaned close and whispered something into her ear.

She blinked. Straightened the folds on her silken garment.

“All right,” she said. “If this is what you both want. I’ve never heard of heroes from another world coming in with nothing.”

“That’s what we left with,” Pliny replied.