A Rolling Stone
After several rounds of lovemaking had ended, Sunya looked down at Inanna, who lay soundly asleep beside him.
Her hair was a little tousled, yet even in sleep she was beautiful. Truly the bearing of a goddess, he thought. The notion that her lower half was still slick with a mess of seed and her own fluids made the sight feel a touch strange, though. Watching her any longer began to bother him, so he carefully drew the blanket up to cover her.
"……"
Quite apart from the lingering afterglow, Sunya's mind was a tangle of thoughts. He kept returning to what had happened that morning.
I'm not certain, but that man was probably the gardener named Shukaletuda.
Back in the twenty-first century, Sunya had sought out any number of myths and come to know their contents rather well. Among them was the tale of Shukaletuda — the foolish gardener who, overcome by a moment's lust, violated Inanna as she slept beneath a tree, only to be struck down later by the goddess when she woke in fury.
Encountered as a mere story, it had been nothing much. But to watch the same event nearly unfold in the flesh made it hard to keep his composure.
Still, that was already past. The greater problem lay elsewhere.
In the original Mesopotamian myths, Sunya did not exist. Naturally, a sage's meeting with a goddess was never part of those stories either. So it would not have been strange if the events still to come diverged entirely from the myths he knew…
And yet Inanna had descended into the underworld, had fallen asleep beneath a poplar tree, and had nearly been violated by a gardener.
Anyone who understood even a little of fate could not dismiss that as coincidence. It felt as though some vast current — some will — were driving history forward.
Of course, fate was not as absolute as one might think. Sunya's own existence proved as much. But even among destinies, there were surely inescapable ones — fated lots that could not be avoided. Just as it had been for him.
Getting too tangled up in such things would be foolish, too.
He would not cling to it. He would simply do his best within the bounds of what he could. After all, he meant to settle in this world from now on.
The weight of thought left him tired. Quietly, Sunya let the tension drain from his body and drifted into sleep.
And the next day—
"Don't hold back — eat as much as you want!!"
Inanna laid out a meal for Sunya. The long table was crowded with every sort of dish and fruit. Word that Sunya would be coming to her residence had apparently spurred the cooks to put real effort into it.
"This is far too much, isn't it?"
"Eat what you like and leave the rest."
For the gods, eating was an unnecessary act. Their bodies did not waste away without food, and spent vitality could be restored simply by sleeping. Going without sleep for too long made recovery difficult, true — but meals themselves were not essential to sustaining life.
Even so, the gods ate. They did so because eating was a pleasure. In other words, a luxury. They dined solely to satisfy the palate, and took pains to obtain delicious foods without any concern for health. Thanks to that, they enjoyed a far more refined food culture than the humans of the age.
Not only cuisine — their other leisure pursuits were, for the moment, far more varied than humanity's as well. It was the gods, after all, who had first handed advanced civilization down to foolish mankind.
Compared to the bold, kaleidoscopic fare of the twenty-first century, the spread was a little wanting — yet it was still far more lavish than any table the human royalty of this era could set.
And Sunya, for his part, had always preferred natural, understated cooking over anything too aggressive, when he ate at all.
"Then I'll gladly dig in."
A servant stepped up beside him and poured wine into his cup.
"Herb-infused grape wine."
"That's right. Surprisingly full-bodied, isn't it?"
"Yes."
There was a quiet dignity in the way Sunya tilted his glass. Even when he brought meat to his lips or reached for fruit, a serene elegance showed through. In every respect, he carried the air of someone raised with care.
The servants watching from the side found it unexpected. His clothes were shabby, yet his every movement held a calm refinement.
Sunya watched Inanna eat across from him. It was the first time he had seen her take a meal, and the impression it left was thoroughly graceful — like watching the nobles and royalty of twenty-first-century dramas and films. Given her actual station, she was nobler still, if anything.
"Since you've come all this way to visit, want to look around the area later?"
"I'd like that."
After a light meal, the two left the palace and walked upon the clouds. Vast mountains and cities spread out below at a glance; the view was not bad. Looking up, one saw a ceiling studded densely with stars.
"As I thought… it's closed off up here."
Inanna tilted her head at Sunya's words.
"Isn't it only natural for the sky to be closed?"
"In the future I knew, the sky wasn't closed. Keep climbing and an endless void opens out, and the world itself is shaped like a round sphere."
The sight of that time rose in Sunya's mind.
"The sky was no longer the domain of the gods alone."
More precisely, the gods had not existed anywhere then. Not a trace of them could be found — as if they had never been there at all.
"Humanity built enormous ships of a peculiar design and carved out domains of their own even in the sky."
"Heeh…"
Hearing him, Inanna suddenly considered a certain possibility.
"The way you talk about it, it really sinks in that you came from another world."
"Does it?"
"But if you think about it — if you came from the distant future, you'd know about our future too, right?"
"……Not precisely. And even if I told you now, things have already diverged so far from the original that it wouldn't mean much."
"I don't mind. Tell me anyway."
Pressed by Inanna, Sunya hesitated a moment, then opened his mouth.
"The stories of the gods are so old that the records often reach people warped or distorted. I'd ask you to keep that in mind first."
"I already said I know."
"The tales of the Anunnaki were passed down to later generations as what people call 'Mesopotamian mythology.' In those myths, before the world took on its present shape, there existed Apsu, the god of fresh water, and Tiamat, the goddess of salt water."
"Huh? I've never heard of those gods."
"As I said, stories aren't handed down exactly as reality was."
"Mm… all right. Go on."
Telling the principals their own story left Sunya with a peculiar feeling.
"In time, Lahamu and Lahmu were born of Apsu and Tiamat. Those two married and bore Anshar of the horizon and Kishar of the earth's edge, and from their union arose Lord An, called the god of the heavens."
"Mm…"
"And finally, from Lord An and Lady Nammu, Lord Enki was born."
"This part I actually know."
"But Apsu grew displeased as the gods multiplied. They were his own children, yet as their numbers swelled he found them harder to control. In the end, together with his attendant Mummu, he reached the point of trying to wipe the gods out entirely."
"What is that supposed to be?"
Drawn into the tale, Inanna frowned. Her lively responses even to a minor story put the teller in good spirits as well.
"At first, Tiamat is said to have restrained Apsu. Children and descendants she had borne in her own womb — not one of them could have been anything less than precious to her. But when Lord Enki learned of the plot, he struck first: he put Apsu to sleep with magic, cut off his head, and hanged Mummu."
"Ohh… knowing that old man, he'd do exactly that and more."
Sunya's stories were always entertaining. This one, being their own, held her interest all the more. The thought that he might be revealing some secret history the elder gods had never disclosed to the world only made it more thrilling.
"And so the first war of the gods ended before it had even properly begun. Long ages passed again. From Lord Enki and a lady named Damgalnuna, a son called Marduk was born. Marduk was an extraordinarily powerful god, and unable to control his own divinity, he is said to have driven great storms across the whole world."
"Wait!"
Unlike her usual self, Inanna cut Sunya off mid-sentence. The content was too important to let slide.
"Damgalnuna is one of Aunt Ninhursag's names — but I've never heard that the two of them had a son called Marduk. If he were as strong a god as you say, there's no way I wouldn't know about him."