The horizon of The Cradle did not merely hold the sun; it looked as if the sky were a molten furnace, pouring liquid gold over the cracked, ancient highways of the Central Plains.
"Whew..."
Enkidu-Sa leaned heavily against the trunk of a half-withered pagoda tree. His breath came in ragged, shallow hitches. For a scholar whose life had been measured in the weight of bamboo scrolls and the quiet scent of ink, the three-thousand-mile trek from the libraries of Lagash had been a brutal education in the reality of the world.
The hem of his green scholar's robes, once a symbol of his status, was now a tattered rag splattered with the dried mud of a dozen provinces. He felt the copper tang of blood in the back of his throat—the price of a humble man attempting to outrun the collapse of an era.
Behind him lay the ruins of a civilization that had forgotten how to be great. The Imperial Court in the capital had become a nest of parasites, too weak to govern and too greedy to let go. They had sold the dignity of The Cradle to the Hross-Horde, paying a staggering "annual tribute" of silk and silver to the northern barbarians just to keep the butcher's blade from their own aristocratic necks.
Enkidu-Sa's knuckles turned white as he gripped the rough bark of the tree. He remembered the faces of the tax collectors—men who took the last grain of rice from starving mothers while the Hross riders laughed at the border. He remembered the flood of the Mother River, where the relief funds were pocketed by bureaucrats who watched the peasants drown from the balconies of their ivory villas.
"This journey may make you a founding pillar of a new era, or leave you as sun-bleached bones in a time of chaos," his master had warned.
But Enkidu-Sa had seen enough bones. He had seen people eating "Goddess Earth"—bitter, grey clay—until their stomachs swelled and they died in the gutters. He had written his Treatise Against Tyranny in blood on a broken wall, realizing in that moment that brush and ink were useless against an iron-hearted world. Only a King could rewrite the Mandate.
And so, he had walked toward the rumors of the "Golden Wedge."
The air changed as he approached the hills of Eanna. The scent of scorched earth and woodsmoke was replaced by something sharp, metallic, and strangely ozone-rich.
The camp of The Auric Reclamation was not a camp; it was a geometric miracle. Arranged like a giant chessboard across the valley, the trenches were perfectly straight, and the watchtowers were positioned according to the alignment of the stars. This was not the work of a "rebel" or a "bandit." This was the work of a master of logistics and celestial order.
As Enkidu-Sa stumbled toward the perimeter, he saw them: the Urukian Immortals.
They stood in silence, their forms encased in brass-gold plate that seemed to hum with a low, predatory vibration. These were the men who had once been the "Grave Walkers"—drab, hopeless levies. Now, they were transformed. They moved with a synchronized grace that defied human biology, their eyes visible through golden masks, glowing with a faint, artificial amber light.
"Halt, mongrel. State your name and your debt to the King."
The voice was not a shout; it was a cold, resonant command that felt as if it had been issued by a machine. Two power-halberds crossed before Enkidu-Sa's chest, the air around the blades shimmering with a faint heat distortion—scavenged archeotech from the Vaults of Eanna.
Enkidu-Sa dropped to his knees, the rattan book-box on his back rattling. "I am Enkidu-Sa of Lagash! I come to offer the King my eyes... to catalog the wealth he has reclaimed and to serve the Mandate that is rightfully his!"
"A scholar?" The guard's mask tilted slightly. "The King has many treasures. Why should he keep a moth that eats paper?"
"Wait!"
A girl, no older than seventeen but carrying herself with the lethal poise of a veteran, stepped out from between the watchtowers. She wore light, ornate ceramic armor that caught the last of the sunlight. This was Siduri, the King's ward, the only one rumored to have the King's ear.
"Another seeker of the Sun?" she asked, her voice like silver bells over the rhythmic clank of training soldiers. She looked at the shivering scholar and smiled—a sharp, dangerous expression. "He looks half-dead, but his eyes aren't empty. That is rare these days."
She turned to the guards, who bowed with a clatter of auric steel. "I am headed to the Pavilion to report the day's spoils from the northern campaign. Let him follow. If the King finds him boring, he can at least feed the crows."
Enkidu-Sa stood on trembling legs, following the girl into the heart of the camp. As they walked, he saw things that defied his understanding of history. He saw massive, hovering wagons laden with relics—swords that glowed like stars, shields that could stop a thunderbolt, and scrolls written in the language of the heavens.
The soldiers did not talk. They did not drink. They did not gamble. They spent their time polishing their armor to a mirror finish and sharpening blades that never seemed to dull. They were a Legion waiting for a soul, led by a man who claimed to have already stolen one from the gods.
"We are here," Siduri said, stopping before a massive pavilion made of spun gold-thread and silk.
Enkidu-Sa looked up. Above the tent, a strange, crystalline device pulsed with a rhythmic blue light, pointing directly at the stars.
"Enter, scholar," Siduri whispered, her playfulness replaced by a sudden, heavy reverence. "You are about to stand before the only thing in this world that is truly real."
Enkidu-Sa stepped through the flaps of the tent. The air inside was heavy with the scent of ancient incense and the hum of power. At the far end of the pavilion, seated upon a throne made of a thousand broken, master-crafted swords, sat a figure that seemed to radiate the heat of a small sun.
Gilgamesh.