Upon entering the first gate, all sight and sound from the outside world vanished like a snuffed candle. The smell of earth and rot was heavy in the air of the long, low, sloping tunnel in which Inanna now found herself. The goddess was forced to bow her head to avoid contact with the uneven, greasy ceiling.
The silver demon was apparently unaffected by their confined conditions, as though shrunken to the largest possible dimensions that would avoid discomfort. He also emitted a faint luminous glow, like mist-drowned moonlight. Inanna found it hard to keep pace with the wretch that moved so freely in this seemingly unending tunnel, and the glow gradually grew fainter as she inexorably fell behind.
After what felt like many dark and uncomfortable hours, the light ahead of her seemed to grow brighter, and this is how Inanna reached the second gate. The demon, which had been reclining at some leisure, spoke up in his strangely smooth tones
‘If you wish to go further, you must remove your jewellery. The Land of the Dead has no place for such baubles.’
Without hesitation, Inanna removed her rings, bracelets, and necklaces, stacking them beside the gatepost, and following the demon into a narrower and lower hallway, dripping with pestilential foulness. The demon had seemingly no difficulty navigating, gliding ahead almost effortlessly as Inanna stumbled and ducked along behind him until they reached the third gate.
The demon was reclining on a boulder when Inanna reached the chamber, looking up briefly as she entered and drawling:
‘If you wish to go further, your cloak must remain here. The Land of the Dead is one without warmth or comfort.’
Shivering involuntarily at the loss of her soft felt cloak, she folded it gently, and placed it atop the demon’s boulder, before following him into a yet narrower, steeper, and lower tunnel. She had to walk at a permanent hunch now, cold, noxious water dripping onto her back and soaking through her robes. Ahead of her, still erect and at ease, strode her guide.
At the next gate, the demon told her:
‘You may yet travel further. Your shoes may not. In the Land of the Dead, feet much touch the ground.’
Removing them without protest, she followed the beast once more. It was obvious now that the tunnel was more winding, and the slope now pronounced, with sharp and slippery shale shifting beneath her now bloodied and grimy feet as she struggled, bent-double, to maintain sight of the demon’s milky glow. Eventually though, the battle was lost, and it was only the distant echoing slap of his feet against the stones that guided her. Suddenly, even that scant companionship vanished.
Torn between panic and despair, Inanna forced herself to continue, to increase her pace. It could not end here in this foul tunnel in the dark, alone. Turning a sharp corner, she almost crashed into the waiting demon.
‘To progress further, you must disrobe. There is no place in the Land of the Dead for such finery.’
It was almost a relief to cast off the now sopping and fouled blue and golden linen, and to press on through the next gate. The ceiling was so low now that she was forced to crawl like an infant. The stone beneath her grated her hands and knees, and her willpower was entirely focused on continuing to move forwards. Again, though, she soon fell behind her guide, and was left in solitary, painful darkness.
Lost in her misery as she was, she did not realise at first that the distant footsteps had stopped, or that the distant glow was brightening.
‘Your undergarments, this time. There is no use for modesty in the Land of the Dead.’
Inanna hesitated, and in that moment, she saw a flicker of green fire in the demon’s eyes, growing as her will faltered. Rather than cowing her, the threat stirred her resolve, and she flung the long-ruined silk from her body, and slid on her belly through the sixth gate. The silver one was still upright in the tiny space, and already far ahead of her. Inanna writhed through the dark, cramped space, propelling herself forward on skinned knees and slime-drenched elbows. Sometimes it felt as if she were not moving at all, just floundering pointlessly in the dark.
Eventually, after what felt like an eon of scratching and straining, she raised her head to see the demon stood before the final, seventh gate.
‘Your veil. My mistress would look upon your face.’
Inanna did not hesitate, though her every fibre quivered with dread, and hurled her veil to the ground, before bursting through the archway, and into the Sanctuary of Ereshkigal.
She found herself in a cavernous, scarce-lit hall, though after all the long hours of only the ghost of moonlight emitted by the demon, she was almost blinded by the light from the central hearth, and high braziers.
When her eyes cleared, Inanna saw mighty Ereshkigal by the fire, bathing her hands in the flames. She had her back turned, but even from this angle the sight of her was awesome. Her hair stood out from her head in a confusion of greased dreadlocks like giant leeches clinging to her skull. The bare, skinless flesh of her body glistened and oozed as she swept her arms through the fire.
Inanna gasped, and the sound roused Ereshkigal from her musing. She twisted in a crunching, violent burst, and her eyes fell upon the wreck of her once-shining sister, all the pain, grief, and misery of her life slammed into Inanna in that instant, immediately striking her dead.
Demons of bronze and silver plunged from the ceiling, their scales glittering in the firelight as they set upon the corpse, flaying the dead goddess and hanging her flesh from a hook by the hearth.
Ereshkigal knelt below the already rotting corpse and wept, for herself and for Inanna, and the loss of what had been beautiful.
Rainbow Samphire 