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Enki awoke, surrounded by water. It pressed on him with heavy indifference, formless, and his first moments were eternal. He struggled, kicking, pushing through the water with new arms. It resisted him with passive weight, but yet he strove against it. Knowing only effort and determination, he worked himself towards the light. He burst through the surface and into the air, dragging in his first breath. He floated on the surface for long ages of thought, feeling the water underneath him as buoyant support now, and he felt wonder at the world around him, vast and as yet unknown. At last he bumped against earth in the shallows and slowly dragged himself free of the clinging embrace of his first home, the abzu. It had given him life, though he'd had to grasp it himself.
He was distinct from his surroundings, and he marvelled at his edges and boundaries. He was alone, burst forth from water but somehow different, and he gloried in his transformation. In it, he saw his work laid out before him, and felt another new emotion, that of joy, as he strode forth to meet it.
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It was one thing to see a life's work stretched out in front of one, like a network of irrigated fields in lush, green glory, and quite another to dig all the ditches that vision required. Enki grew weary of the mud caked under his nails, and even his back tired and grew stiff. Others of his kin likewise complained that the world of earth and sky did not shape itself, but required of them constant effort. Though they had been variously pulled from the night sky, the water, or the earth itself, and could not age or die, they certainly could feel worn by their labours.
Enki put down his load of mudbricks and stretched up to the sun. He loved his garden, built on fine silt under the wide sky. It was nestled between the mighty arms of two rivers, over the imperturbable waters of the abzu, and Enki loved the edges and boundaries of his home. He rolled his shoulder back and dug into the tense muscle there with the fingers of his other hand. He did not like the effort needed to build his garden.
The sky was streaked red as Enki finished his work. Smoke from a cooking fire smudged the twilight as he approached his home, and he quickened his pace. He wasn't expecting guests, but guests who brought dinner were welcome. He ducked through the doorway into his courtyard and washed his hands. At the top of the stairs to the rooftop, Ninki handed him a cup of beer with a smile.
"How do you fare?" she asked, leading the way to the floor mats beside the cooking fire.
"Tired," said Enki, "and overworked."
"One will be cured by the evening, and perhaps we shall find a cure for the other too," she replied. Enki was intrigued. He did not know Ninki well, and was not sure why she had sought him out. He had met her a few times in the houses of An, but he knew nothing of her strengths or interests. She seemed in no hurry to talk, however. Instead, she filled a bowl with chickpea and parsnip stew and handed it over with some barleycake, followed by some grilled waterfowl. He ate greedily, sparing only a little attention from his plate to speculate on Ninki's presence in his house.
At last he finished and mopped his plate with the last of his bread. Ninki put aside her bowl and spoon and wiped her fingers neatly on a cloth.
"You have been working hard," she said. "Lord of Water, you seek the ordering of the world and the sorting of things into neat arrangement."
"You have the advantage of me," Enki said, deciding to abandon any pretense and let his curiosity out. "Thank you very much for the meal, of course, but why are you in my house?"
Ninki laughed. "Whenever I visit An, I have to dance around the topic for hours with portentous sounding platitudes about his many virtues," she said. "I see that for all you are Lord of Water, you are not so slippery."
Enki laughed too, and poured himself some more beer. It was true; even though An had to work as hard as the rest of them, he liked to sit on his rooftop and pontificate like he had all the time in the world to polish his words.
"I've been thinking about all this work we do," Ninki said. "And I saw you showing off your latest invention at An's house, and thought that perhaps we could make a servant - a copy of ourselves, who can draw the water and till the fields and cook the bread."
Enki turned the bare proposal over in his head. He could already see the shape that they could take, the fine details of form that would make them fit for task. He wondered why he hadn't thought of it before, and was a little angry with himself. He shouldn't have needed to have this pointed out to him. He mastered himself, though. This would be a mighty labour, and he would need assistance.
"A good idea," he said. "I, too, have been thinking along these lines. Mudbrick servants will make life much easier."
"Mudbrick will crumble," Ninki pointed out. "It is a start, but only an approximation of a shape, as the roofs of our houses are just an echo of the earth."
"Did you have any ideas, then?" asked Enki.
"Yes," she said. "When I was made, I struggled forth from the earth, having coalesced from sand and silt and pebble until I was distinct and separate. Our lord An swooped from the sky made of the blue glass of the heavens animated with wind, but different from both, and your brother Enlil the same, but with the hot fire of a storm."
"You've been spending too much time with An again," said Enki.
"You've been spending too much time with silent mudbricks. I'm getting to my point," said Ninki. "The point is, the servants need to be animated, pulled forth from their starting point and distinct from it. We are differentiated from our origins, and now we bleed and breathe, and I propose we should put that knowledge into the mudbrick of our servants."
Enki considered this. It seemed a sound idea on the surface, but the deeper layers were troubling and complex. He wondered briefly if the difficulties would be worth it. Shifting on his mat, his back complained about the bending and lifting he'd done that day, and he was decided.
"Let us talk more," he said. "I will fetch some clay tablets first, if you will pour some more beer."
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Ninki had been born from earth, scrabbling her way up from its cold, slick embrace into the sun. She was used to the dark lines of mud under her fingernails and smeared on her skin. Even she was growing weary of this work, though, and Enki had taken to muttering under his breath even as his hands never faltered.
Stretching in the last of the sunlight, Ninki looked with vague discontent at the broken bodies of their prototypes swept into a pile. This one had been too brittle, and this one too weak, and they had all been too mechanical.
Ninki walked over to where Enki was impressing the last characters of the most recent mes onto a cylinder. Ninki would never have believed that creating servants would need so many fine details, but she'd seen too many creations split into indecisive shards when directed to do something without the clear instructions of the mes.
Enki looked up at her without smiling. He had seemed to take the frustrations of this task personally, as if it was a lack of drive or will on his part that was causing the problems. Ninki ignored his ill-humour. It had taken time for the concept of servants to come to them, long ages of complaining and weariness on the part of all their kin, so it made sense to her that the problem would only be solved by equally long ages of experimentation and failure.
She picked up one of the mes and idly turned it over and over in her hands. Enki's characters were clear, with sharp edges and definition. He had insisted on writing these himself, and she had been content to let him. She was better at coaxing the earth into shape, as the tiny grains of mud responded to her silent urging, as if they recognised her still.
She wondered what it was that had drawn her forth from the clay, or had pulled Enki from the water or Enlil from the storm. There was a drive in each of them, like a spark or a seed, that sought expression. She wondered how to replicate that with their servants. How could you find that energy and channel it through the aggregate of their forms? How could you transform their mud and straw into bone and blood?
"How were you made?" she asked, looking up from the mes to find Enki watching her hands. He looked up at her, and slight colour stained his cheeks.
"I was surrounded," he said, voice low. "Locked in the soft embrace of the water. I struggled. I pushed and thrust and drove myself up towards the light, not knowing quite why or what for, but urged blindly. I shook with the pleasure and pain of life, though not yet really alive, and when I burst through the surface it was a small death. I was myself, transformed, and I knew nothing and everything."
Reaching out, Enki touched her hand on the mes, and Ninki felt the cool embrace of the earth on her skin through his fingers. She remembered too that wordless striving, and had herself been consumed by the urge to seek until she found the sweet nothingness of air. Maybe this was what they had been lacking; the imperative need to break and tear and leap into the unknown.
"I too was made that way," she said. "The earth pressed down on me with slick, cool weight, and I pushed against it, clawed against it, until I broke free in a small avalanche of dirt, streaming from me, leaving me deathless, having experienced death." She turned her hand, and captured Enki's fingers with her, and together they made infinitely pliable, fertile soil.
"You must pour out the water of life," she said, "and I shall push it into this thing we have made on a river of my blood, and it will awaken."
Enki caught her close, the mes pressed between them, imprinting its shapes into their skin. They were caught in the heavy press of life, full of urgency, full of lust, and they surrendered to the joy of being made again.
When she next could breathe again, Ninki gazed up at the wide expanse of the sky, dark blue with one twinkling star in the twilight. On her breast, Enki drew in his own first breath and let it out with a slow sigh. She stroked his hair and let him slip from her body. He drew away as her stomach swelled with life, kneeling back between her thighs and watching as the seed grew. Ninki cupped her hands over it and felt the stirring, in awe of what they had kindled.
"Help me up," she said. She put the mes, fallen from her hand, back on the bench with the others before making her way to the most recent form they had crafted. She looked down on him with love and tenderness. Her body shifted, racked with a new kind of pain.
"Are you alright?" Enki asked.
"I am birthing life," she said. "Does that sound comfortable to you?" She gasped as the pain shifted and grew sharper. Enki rubbed her back in a small counterpoint, and she brought her hands down under her body, cupping them to catch life as it slid, bloody, from her body.
Enki joined her, kneeling over the mudbrick form of their most recent creation. Together, they coaxed the life they had made into the body they'd prepared, urging it on. At last it was in, and their being was alive and separate from them both. It took a deep breath and opened its eyes to the sky.
"Welcome, Adapa," she said. "Welcome to the world."
Enki helped her up again and fetched her a beer as their last creation stood under the evening sky, separate from both of them, alive and striving in their own right.
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Enki grew comfortable and sleek in his newly built temple in the heart of his garden. He lounged in his chair as his acolytes presented the last of today's gifts for his approval. He'd already had most of a jug of beer, and life felt good to him. Surveying the jars of grain and the fat-looking fowl, the small bowls of honey and dates, he contemplated how much things had changed. He stood and spoke the ritual words he'd devised, of the natural order of humans and their service, his godhead and his dominion. The acolytes removed the offerings in humble gratitude and Enki stretched and scratched his belly. He was going to bathe and prepare for dinner, and his life would continue in luxuriant order. He finished his beer before taking another jug into the bathroom with him.
The water was waiting for him, perfectly hot, and he stripped his clothes with alacrity. He still found this a most agreeable delight, and had not completely forgotten the toil of his garden, even here in the heart of his fledgling city further south, in reality a tiny collection of mudbrick huts. He deserved the finer things of life, and one day there would be thousands united in his service rather than the few families currently gathered.
He stepped out onto his roof, clean and just pleasantly drunk, in anticipation of a dinner that he hadn't had to cook himself, and momentarily checked his stride at the sight of Ninki seated already on one of the mats situated to catch the evening breeze. She was dusty and wearing rough clothes, suitable only for travelling and labour. His nose wrinkled in distaste for an instant before he remembered his manners and moved forward to greet her.
"Ninki, how lovely to see you," he said, not entirely sincerely, but with at least some truth. She'd left the garden soon after Adapa's creation, and had not seen how he had grown and developed the vision they'd shared. He was proud of the life of leisure he'd created for himself, and spread slowly to their kin. Even Enlil's smouldering, thunderous resentment over their creation was a small thing in comparison. Humans were the crowning achievement of his work, and he was eager to share his progress with Ninki.
"It is good to see you also," Ninki said. He kissed her cheek and then her lips. She was not smoothly oiled or freshly washed, but was instead clearly part of the wild lands and not civilisation. She sat with composure on his mat, however. When Enki looked around, he realised she'd sent away the servant who usually cooked for him, though others still stood discreetly at the top of the stairs. He signalled for one of them to fetch him another jug of beer, the favourite of his creations. Ninki didn't comment on the beer, but ladled out a thick stew of millet, onions and fish. Enki was relieved that at least the food was still good, though he didn't need to eat to fuel physical labour now, but for pleasure.
They ate in silence, and Enki remembered the many meals they had shared in the past. They had often been in silence as one or both of them turned ideas and plans over in their heads, and sometimes by conversation as they worked out new directions to take the work in. It seemed time didn't break old habits.
Putting aside her plate, Ninki wiped her mouth with a cloth and looked at him closely. Enki wiped his mouth with his sleeve with drunken deliberation, burped gently, put aside his plate, and waited for her to explain whatever idea had brought her here.
"I see you've been building," Ninki said. "This house is more comfortable than anything I have seen before. You always were restless to create new things. It seems you don't build them directly anymore."
"Why should I?" said Enki. "I have humans for that. Servants, as crafted in the garden I made. They labour for me, as I pour out the water of life for the world. They serve me well, and our kin. We have achieved godhead." A small silence fell, where he tried to shake the feeling that she didn't quite approve of the mechanical vision of his humans. He shifted the subject. "What have you been doing? What brings you here?"
"I have roamed the world and continued the work of my hands," Ninki said. "But I wish for a while to dwell in a garden of my own, and come to claim my share of the mes, that I might lay strong and righteous paths through it, and grow straight, tall crops."
Enki laughed, until he realised that Ninki was serious.
"The mes are mine," he said, incredulous. He hadn't thought about Ninki very much at all for quite some time, and, when he had, he'd always assumed she'd slot back into his life without disruption. He'd imagined she would share his home and his work, and it had never crossed his mind that she might have plans of her own, much less ones that would require him to give up some of the mes.
"The mes are ours," she replied, undeterred by his refusal.
"I wrote them," he said. "They are mine by right of my hand."
"We created them together," she said. "They are mine also, by right of our shared creation."
Enki had held the mes for so long that he had nearly forgotten her part in their making. They seemed to him to be unquestionably his, and Ninki asking for them was an unexpected affront. His anger started to burn; he was the Lord of Water and not some lowly member of their shared kin, and she had no rightful stake in anything of his making.
"Your part in their creation was trifling," he said, at last. "I cannot allow your claim."
"I shouldered my share of the burden of work, and more, during their making," Ninki said. "We laboured side by side, in partnership, and the words we made together are still pressed into my skin, as they must be in yours." She slipped down the side of her tunic to the soft skin of her chest and breast, where one of the mes was clearly marked. Enki remembered that night of wild, magical creation, where humans were first made, but he did not back down from his drunken belligerence.
"You have no claim," he said again. He waved his hand and his servants sprang forward. She looked startled, and he felt grimly glad. He had power now, over these humans he'd created - him, not her! - and over his kin, and would even wield it over her. "She is ready to leave," he said to his servants.
One of them hauled Ninki to her feet. She did not complain or remonstrate, and he was glad. He was feeling the effects of the drink and wasn't sure he'd be able to maintain an argument. She shook off the servant's hand and looked down at Enki instead. He couldn't be sure what she was thinking, but it didn't matter; she was leaving. She walked from the rooftop and down the stairs.
He took the last of his beer to the edge of the roof and watched her walk away, her small bag of possessions slung over her shoulder. He remembered now, as his anger cooled, all the things they had done together. He remembered her cool, practical thought, and how well they had created life between them. He thought about calling her back, but then considered having to give her half the mes. He could not do that; his anger and pride would not let him. He would not give them up. They were his, and always would be, though he knew a small shred of shame and melancholy at his behaviour. He belched and called for another drink.
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Ninki walked for a long time under the thin moonlight. It was close to the full, and she could easily see the path away from Enki's garden and back into the wild. As she walked, she let her confusion settle, turning over the events of the evening and sifting through them. As she grew colder, she also grew angry.
Enki's dismissal had hurt. She had not expected him to deny their old partnership, and she didn't believe he'd forgotten it. She had not thought him capable of such greed, such indolence as she'd seen. His arrogance and hubris had never entered her mind. It made her fearful that she might be completely forgotten, and that hurt just as much as Enki throwing her out of his house. She pushed all those small, vulnerable feelings into the crackling fury deep in her belly.
As the moon started to sink and the night entered the long, cold dark before dawn, Ninki stopped in a small hollow and kindled a little fire, unrolling her blankets next to it. She fed the fire carefully with her small stash of charcoal and heated a little pot of water over it. She brewed a cup of herbs and sipped it slowly as the sky gradually lightened.
A bright star hovered near the horizon. It was an old friend to Ninki; she had always been an early riser, and that star was often the first thing she saw as she lifted her face to the sky in the morning to greet her kindred An and Enlil in spirit. It sparkled, full of light and distant allure. It was beautiful, she decided, but dangerous. The star did not follow a predictable pattern, and would be unwise as a arbiter of bearings or tidings, but it was a beacon of her desires for her kin, and humans. It meant passion that could animate reason and action. It meant a wild freedom and passion.
Ninki sighed. She cupped her hands over her belly, remembering the deep pain of transformation she'd felt as she'd kindled life with Enki. They'd made such pleasure together, and then used that to make Adapa with blood and bone, earth and water. She felt fire mixed with her earth today, though; she hoped it would cool enough to let her sleep.
She sat straighter, suddenly arrested by a thought. What if she sought that pleasure of life alone, and embraced the pain that came with it? She could not create a human, but one of her kin? Perhaps, if she gave up all her anger and hot desire, she could draw one of her kin from the star; someone who would feel all those pains and pleasures of lust and war, who would burn bright and hot and dangerously. Someone who would draw forth the fire of humans, and bring them to their full potential. Someone who, perhaps, would one day hold the mes by right of conquest.
Without thinking too much, she slipped off her clothes and curled under her blanket. She let herself feel again the pleasures of the flesh, but this time alone. Her fingers slid over the impressions the mes had left on her body from her first essay in making life, and she whispered the words there to herself, fortifying herself, stoking the burning anger to bright hot lust. As she reached her peak, she pushed the kindled life force out of herself and into the chilly morning air, where it sizzled and roared like a lion as it flew through the air. She dropped back onto the blankets, empty, satiated and peaceful. She felt sure that her experiment had been successful, and she had drawn into being one who was ready to exist, just waiting to be embodied.
Rolling onto her side, Ninki pulled the blankets up higher and curled up, tired, but satisfied with the work she'd done. She no longer felt anger, just vague sadness, and a lingering sense that there was more for humans and for her kin to enjoy and do and be. She slept, sure that she'd started that process into action, and content to wait to see what shape it took.
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She broke forth from fire, twisting and wriggling and kicking free. It felt like she'd been waiting a long time to come forth, and, now that she had, she would waste no time. The gas pressed on her, thin enough to slip through, heavy enough to crush. She burst out of the corona, her first breath in and then out as a shriek of rage and pain, before she fell to earth. She cooled quickly on the fertile red soil, but lay for unknown time, letting the sky wheel above her, letting life fill her to the very edges of her being. She was herself, entire and distinct, brimming with the heat of violence, of lust, right to the tips of her fingers.
At long last she pulled herself free from the earth. She plucked a shard of sharp black glass from her hair and turned it over and over in her hands. Looking about her, she considered the river running past in glorious abundance, and the sweeping flat plains around. It seemed a rich place, of fertility and promise. She liked it. She would stay here. People would come to her, and she would build a city, and it would be glorious and burn bright.
She felt also, deep underground, an endless reservoir of water, and the faraway presence of her kin. It was good, to feel connected in this wide world. She could see her work ready all around her, waiting for her to make herself. She would illuminate the twilight, as all put down their tools and sought the pleasures of the evening, and she would brighten the sky, as lust stirred her people from sleep. She would bring them passion, and they would bring her delight.
She walked steadily across the grasslands towards the faint smudge of a fire. At the edge of a hollow she looked down on a sleeping woman, surely one of her kin, wrapped in rough blankets with her clothes folded under her head. As she watched, the woman stirred, turning and stretching with the blanket sliding down her body. She opened her eyes and blinked once or twice, before a slow smile stretched across her face.
"Greetings," she said. "Come, join me. I have enough for two. I am Ninki, and you are well met."
"Thank you," she replied. "I am Inanna, and I am very hungry."
"Of course you are," Ninki replied.
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Inanna walked through her little city, down from her temple, through the bustling marketplace, along the river to the start of the walls. Her people pressed around her, and their liveliness was a delight to her. They were strong and tireless in lust and war and work, and gloried in all three.
She climbed up the stairs to the first part completed. The work was good - smooth and well laid, edges neat and unlikely to crumble. She appreciated the effort that good artisans took over their work; it was a kind of a passion too, though one remote from her more immediate interests. She looked north first, towards Nippur, then east to Umma before south to Ur and Eridu. She knew of these cities and had walked their streets with others of her kin and with humans. None of them were as great as Uruk was and would be.
Inanna strolled back to her temple, laughing and joking with her people. They were winding down from the day, and she felt the little tug of her star rising in the west where the sky was still streaked with red. Stopping in the door of her temple, she took a deep breath and allowed her spirit to lift up, through the clear evening sky, so she could look down on the earth. She floated gently in the void, soaking up the energy and fire of the star, shining her light down on her people. It would fill them with the passion they needed to live brightly and well.
She was able to travel far and wide in this form, to observe anything visible by the light of her star. Swooping down, she enveloped Ninki as she rested from the labours of her day; something involving soil and crops that seemed to make her happy. Inanna rested for a moment on her shoulder, sending warmth through her body and making her smile. Inanna smiled too, before continuing on to the rest of the world.
In Eridu, Enki was walking through the courtyard of his temple, carrying a lit lamp. Intrigued, Inanna moved closer and watched him disappear down a concealed cellar door, tucked discreetly behind some steps to the rooftop, next to a small workshop. Enki was alone, and Inanna had never seen that before. Enki was almost always accompanied by his servants, which made the contents of that cellar even more interesting.
She came back to herself with a jolt, and stepped back through the doorway of her temple to collect her thoughts. Her curiosity had been sparked, and she wondered what might be in there. She wondered if it was something to do with the inexplicable power his city held. It had often irked her to consider the dominion that resided there. To be fair, Enki was one of the greatest of her kin, and his gift for invention was rivalled only by his love of wine, both things she could respect.
Her gaze came to rest on a flask of date wine. Enki, as lord of water, had a special affinity for drinks, but she rather thought that the latest sort of wine made in her temple courtyard was something special, even outside his experience. Ninki had spent a season here, tinkering with the soil and the palms, resulting in fatter, sweeter fruit, and therefore in sweeter, more intoxicating wine. Inanna rather thought she might have a way into those cellars, with this wine as her key.
She strode from the temple, ordering her barge to be made ready for leaving in the morning, her best tunic and heaviest gold jewellery prepared, and, most importantly, several flasks of the new date wine packed.
She wore the simple clothes of a whore as she danced down to the quay in the still dark before dawn. Her spirit soared in the heavens as the faintest glow stole over the eastern sky, a fitting frame for her beauty, and a clear portent of a good day. The barge made good time, and she changed into her embroidered tunic, with a heavy girdle of gold set with lapis around her hips, and a turban shot with silver thread set tenderly on her head. She lined her eyes, making them darker and more inviting, and gave her lips a red stain that spoke of lust. She brushed a fleck of dust from the hem and regally descended from the barge. She felt comfort in the perfection of her appearance; she knew people often didn't look past it, and she wanted Enki to underestimate her tonight.
"Inanna, well met, and a pleasant surprise," he said. She didn't think he meant it. He kissed her cheek, then her lips, and she let herself look coyly delighted at his attentions. She was impatient, but she recognised that just as some men needed to be coaxed with demure flirtation, some gods likewise required many lofty phrases before they could be brought to the point.
"My people have pressed the first of a new batch of date wine," she said. "I need expert opinion on their work, and who better to tell me if wine is good than the lord of water?"
"New date wine?" he echoed, smiling broadly. "I am honoured."
He led the way through the rooms of his temple - larger, but not as streamlined in function as hers - but stood back in the courtyard to let her climb the steps to the roof first. Her eyes caught the faint outline of the door to the mysterious cellar, but she concentrated on climbing up the stairs with the most languorous wriggle she could muster.
The wine was strong, stronger even than she had anticipated, and she made sure to marvel appropriately at Enki's capacity, even as she herself sipped with discretion and filled her cup with water half the time. It went sorely against the grain to let him have the lion's share of it, but she reminded herself that there was more at stake than a raucous night. As the darkness gathered, she lit some lamps to cast a sensuous glow, and firmly dismissed his servants.
"I don't remember you," Enki said, slurring his words and half slumped over on his mat. Inanna tenderly removed his cup from his grasp and refilled it.
"I have heard many stories of your exploits," she said, pressing the cup back into his hand. "They say you invented pottery, and the wheel, and from that the chariot."
"I have more manly strengths than that," he protested, taking another drink.
"Oh, so they say," she agreed. "I hear you spill your seed with more virility than the mighty river, and not even the Abzu can hold your abundance, when it is aroused."
"Are you the woman to arouse me?" he asked. She shifted closer, one hand sliding up his thigh and the other urging the cup to his lips again.
"I am the evening star, illuminating your every desire," she said. "Indeed, I shall take everything you have to give."
"I will give you everything," he said.
"Everything?" she echoed. She let her hand toy under the edge of his tunic. "Do you promise me everything?"
"Yes," he said. "Yes, you shall have all of me."
"Oh, I shall take everything you have," she said. He finished the last of the cup and she helped him to his feet and to the edge of the bed. They stood breast to breast for a moment, and he seemed to be struggling to find the words he wanted. She pressed him down onto the mattress and smoothed back his hair. He slipped into sleep without protest, and she sat next to him to be sure he wouldn't waken. It seemed unlikely that he would; the date wine had done its job too well.
The house was silent around her as she slipped down the stairs. She handed her turban and girdle to her waiting servant, then crossed to the half-hidden cellar. The door opened easily. She quailed a little at the doorway opening at her feet like a dark mouth waiting to gobble her up, but pushed aside her fear. There was nothing under the earth to hurt her. She lit her lamp once down the first few steps, to minimise the chance of being caught by any sleepless cook or cleaner.
The room was small, lined with shelves containing cylinders. They were unremarkable, and in other circumstances she would have disdained them as crude, even rustic. She reached out and picked up the nearest one. The words were familiar, and she realised she'd seen their impression in the tender skin of Ninki's breast. They must be the mes. She'd heard whispers of them, but had assumed they were simply metaphorical instruments of dominion. It awed her to see them collected here, knowing they were older than the bodily form of godhead she wore. She touched her own breast, where lingered very faintly, like elaborate scratches, the shadow of the mes mark left on Ninki. She, then, belonged to these things, and they, likewise, must belong to her.
She returned to the surface and collected all the baskets and bags she could find. She set her servants to work, silent as shadows, carrying them from the cellar to her barge. She was gone from Enki's house before the moon set; long enough to be well clear of the city, and some distance from pursuit. She stood at the front, watching the water split evenly around the prow, and she sang quietly a song of strength and pride that hardened the muscles and reanimated the will of her bargemen. Around her feet, like so many chickens for a wedding feast, were the mes, bar the one she clutched in her hand. She was fiercely glad to hold them, and vowed to use them to make humankind soar in unimaginable flight.
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Enki awoke late, alone, and with both a very urgent desire to find a chamberpot and an absolute belief that any movement would result in vomiting. One of his servants helped him sit up and waited solicitously while Enki got through the first few minutes of his morning in an undignified mess. He accepted a cup of cool mint tisane and gulped it down.
A long bath helped, and he finally emerged in a loose tunic, with most of his brain functioning, and a desperate hunger for fried barleycakes. He sat on his rooftop and stuffed the first one into his mouth before pausing. His memories of the night were hazy, but surely he couldn't have imagined Inanna's presence.
"Did Inanna leave early?" he asked the nearest servant. He was impressed by the hardness of her head, if so.
"They were gone when we awoke this morning," the servant replied.
Enki considered this. It seemed unlikely his household had uniformly slept in, and he couldn't imagine any business so pressing that it would require leaving before dawn. He remembered how attentive Inanna had been, how eager to sit close enough that he could feel the heat of her body through her thin tunic, how she'd refilled his cup and marvelled at his strength. His stomach started to turn again, but this time with uneasiness, anger and shame. He considered what her purpose might have been, and if he'd underestimated her pretty face and not considered her sharp brain.
He walked carefully around his house, looking for anything out of place. He spotted a lamp, sitting on the bench in his workshop next to his little cellar. He frowned. That was definitely out of place. Walking closer, he saw the dusty tracks of footsteps, not yet swept away, going back and forth from the cellar door. His blood ran cold, and he heaved open the heavy door in mingled panic and fury. The room was empty.
He turned and ran back up the steps, trying to gather his thoughts. He'd had no idea that Inanna, or any of the other gods bar Ninki, even knew that the mes existed in real form, much less their location. He burst into his temple and hastily pulled on the regalia of his lordship, noticing, for the first time, how the tunic strained a little around his stomach, and how soft and clumsy his fingers were. He was calling for his servants, desperate to catch up with Inanna, when he stopped short. Ninki was seated comfortably on his mighty throne, looking as dusty and wild as ever.
"You!" he said, voice full of loathing. He remembered Ninki's failed attempt to get the mes, and wondered just how long she'd been plotting this.
"I don't think you will have me removed from your home this time," she said. Enki was surprised by the gentle, level tone of her words, where he'd expected smugness. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what? Did Inanna betray you also?"
"No one has betrayed either you or me," she said. "Or, at least, you betrayed me once, and perhaps this is the abzu's way of circling that back to you. It was certainly no action of mine that led to your humbling."
"I have no time to listen," he said. "I must pursue Inanna and retrieve the mes."
"You will not succeed," she said.
"I know," he said, "I know, but still I must try. I have forgotten what it is to strive, and my muscles are weak with disuse."
"The mes have moved on," Ninki said. "Inanna will give humans what neither you nor I could fully grasp, and they will be free from fate. One day they will be free of you and me, and even of her."
"I know all this," said Enki. "Why tell me these things? Do you think I have not already seen them stretched out in the empty shelves of my storeroom?"
"I have already accepted my fate," said Ninki. "I thought I might be some consolation when you faced yours at last."
Enki sat down on the floor and clasped his face in his hands. He knew she was right, and he'd seen this fate laid out for him even as he'd floated on the waters of the abzu. He'd known fate would claw him back once more, one day, and he would dissolve back into the water he'd burst from. He had known this, and denied it. It hurt to know that humans, designed as his servants, would escape the slow fading back into the void.
"Come," said Ninki. "It's not so bad, to know that there is an end to your labours, and that still long ages away. You have simply never thought of it before. But what are you but the god who thinks of new things?"
"It is cold consolation," said Enki.
"Yes," agreed Ninki. "Go, then, back into the light, and set forth on your pursuit, and learn again how to strive in a lost cause. You will find yourself in the losing of your treasure."
"It was your treasure too," he said. "I should have let you have your share."
"No," she said. "I like it better this way. I like knowing that humans will outlast us, and be more than we could have imagined, while still being the flawed clay of our devising."
"That is too much for me," he said. "If this is your victory, I hope your hands are strong and nimble enough to hold it, for mine are not."
"It is a victory for us all, though you have not yet seen it. Go," she said, again. "I will be in the garden when you are ready to work with me again."
Enki levered himself to his feet and straightened his tunic and his heavy chain of gold. He was lord of water, and he would follow the path that fate had given him. He would burn off the sleepiness of too much beer and date wine. He would reclaim the vigour he'd been animated with, and find again the strength of his hands and his mind. He would accept the path he'd seen, long years ago, and it's inevitable end. Striding forth from the temple, he called for his servants to prepare his barge, and harness extra donkeys on the tow path, and tip out that infernal date wine. He felt relief, and perhaps even a fleeting, fugitive moment of joy.