Free Etruscans by Morgan Llywelyn Page B

drew nearer to them, however, the quality of the cloth in the heavy robes they wore put him in mind of the last Roman trade delegation to visit the city. Best to address them carefully. “Halt and state your business,” he called in measured tones.
    The six continued to advance. He could not see their
faces, overshadowed as they were by the large hoods, but a hollow voice replied, “We are looking for someone.”
    The guard leveled his spear at the speaker. “Who?”
    Again the answer came: “We are looking for someone.”
    â€œI have to have a name,” insisted the guard, taking one prudent step backward but continuing to point his spear. The voice set his teeth on edge and caused a peculiar unease in the pit of his stomach, as if he had eaten spoiled meat. “I cannot let just any stranger off the road come in here.”
    â€œWe are not just any strangers; we mean to enter,” replied the hollow voice.
    As they continued toward him, the guard grew nervous. There were six of them to one of him, and though they did not appear to be armed, their attitude implied menace.
    He reached for the horn hanging at the side of the gate to warn of intruders.
    A nauseating odor swept over him. Suddenly his head seemed full of swirling mist. He drew a breath to cry out but that only sucked the foul air deeper into his lungs. As he choked, the lead figure had almost casually brushed aside his leveled spear. The other five followed.
    Within the templum Caile and his fellow purtani were chanting incantations over braziers clustered at one end of a high podium to form a five-pointed star. At the other end was an altar on which a motionless Pepan lay. When the Dying was successfully completed, the emptied husk would be placed in an elaborately painted and decorated tomb, there to spend all eternity surrounded by beauty.
    In a precise order the priests alternately trickled powders and water into the flames of the braziers. Scented smoke billowed; colored flames plumed. The sons and daughters of Pepan promptly used consecrated scarves
to wave the smoke toward the doorways, while they repeated their own chants of summoning.
    Supine on the altar, Pepan lay beneath his purple canopy and felt no sense of time passing. He was suspended between worlds. The weight of his flesh seemed an increasingly slight impediment. Soon he would break his last bonds with his physical body and go. And he would be pleased to go. He had no fear of Death. His only regret was that he had been unable to help Repana when she most needed him. It gave him some consolation to know the hunter would look after them however. Obviously this path was ordained by the gods. Though he had often doubted them during his lifetime, here and now Pepan found it easy to believe in the Ais.
    Suddenly rising voices interrupted the ceremony. They buzzed like insects around Pepan. He just wanted to drift … away … away …
    â€œWho are those strangers?” someone was asking.
    Another replied, “I felt dizzy the moment they passed under the portico.”
    â€œWhere did they come from?”
    â€œThey have a dreadful smell about them, did you notice?”
    â€œHow silently they move. Have they no feet?”
    â€œHow dare they enter Sacred Space uninvited!”
    â€œAre they … gods?”
    Reluctantly Pepan became aware of six dark shadows looming like vultures around the altar. He could feel cold thoughts probing his dying brain, unnatural ideas and bizarre images flickering behind his fading eyes. Panic rose in him. These must be siu , come to claim him … .
    Though the hia of his dead kin had not arrived to protect him from the encroaching Otherworld and guide him safely to Veno in the Netherworld, he could wait no longer.
    With a great burst of energy Pepan leaped free of his body and fled along the nebulous, misty pathway that
opened up before him. In the distance he could see dim shapes; he prayed they were