Setting the Wheel in Motion
"…I don't fully understand it, but it's remarkable. To finish a construction project of this scale so quickly."
Adapa tilted his head even as he offered his respect.
"No. Without that enormous kiln Lady An lent us, it would have been impossible."
Sunya pointed to the kiln of Dilmun standing behind them.
It was certainly far larger than any kiln humans used, and that size would have made firing vast quantities of brick far easier. Even so, that alone could not diminish what Sunya had accomplished. That he had single-handedly exerted the labor of tens of thousands was an undeniable fact. Simply grasping the building's design so completely was already extraordinary.
Adapa could not understand why this god kept offering such pointless humility. When he thought of the gods who clawed for worship by any means to gather faith, Sunya's manner was truly exceptional.
"In any case, thank you. Thanks to you, Lord Adapa, we were able to complete the temple like this."
"I hardly did anything. I only drew the plans. And even then, to be honest, I didn't sketch them expecting them to succeed."
"I'm the one who asked you to make it as large and splendid as possible. Come to think of it, I did promise to paint something for you, didn't I? If there's anything else you want, even now, just say so. Or I can simply paint whatever landscape or figure you desire as it is."
"…"
Adapa studied Sunya's face for a moment, then carefully opened his mouth.
"Please paint a horizon for me. An endless horizon stretching on without end."
"That shouldn't be difficult."
The reason Adapa had asked for a horizon was simply that he thought it the safest request. There was no deeper meaning. Asking a god for something beyond one's station could easily invite trouble.
Sunya produced a white clay tablet from somewhere and hardened it, then painted the horizon Adapa had described. What he drew was a horizon at dusk, flushed red with the setting sun. The sun sinking low, reddish waves rolling, white clouds cast in light and shadow — the scene seized Adapa's heart in an instant.
"If it isn't what you wanted, I'll paint it again."
"No. This is more than enough."
One way or another, Sunya was undeniably skilled at painting. He himself regarded it as little more than a personal rendering of modern Western art, but to anyone else it was clearly the domain of innate genius.
"Since the work is finished, I might as well ask…"
When Sunya spoke, Adapa lifted his gaze from the painting.
"Has something been weighing on your mind lately?"
"Pardon?"
"You look as though you've been thinking a great deal. Haha."
Sunya opened his eyes a fraction. Those blue irises seemed to pierce straight through to the heart.
"It's nothing of importance."
"If you don't wish to speak of it, you needn't. Still, there are times when consulting with others is better than carrying everything alone."
Is he forcing me to talk?
Even as he grumbled inwardly, Adapa had wanted to tell someone — so he opened his mouth.
"…There's simply something I don't understand. Something related to my father."
"Mm. Go on."
"I don't understand why he told me not to eat the food of Dilmun — why he kept me from gaining eternal life. Or why he never even told me that Dilmun's food grants immortality in the first place."
It was a worry he had carried in his heart all this time. Afraid of hearing something truly unpleasant, he had never even raised the subject with Enki directly.
"Perhaps Father simply couldn't stand the idea of a mere half-breed crawling up to a position anything like his own?"
"That could be."
"…"
Sunya said it so readily that Adapa was left speechless.
"But it might not be, either."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Just as eating the food of the underworld binds one to the underworld, when one who is not a god eats the food of Dilmun, they become bound to it. You would gain eternal life — but you would never again set foot upon the earth."
Sunya continued in a gentle gaze.
"Perhaps Lord Enki believed you still have work left to do in the mortal world. Or perhaps he simply didn't want you to be blinded by immortality and forever severed from the bonds you hold dear."
"…Are you trying to encourage me right now?"
"You could see it that way."
It was strange, still. That a god would care about the feelings of a mere mortal.
Sunya was fundamentally different from every god Adapa had ever known.
"Gods live in circumstances and environments far removed from ordinary humans. They tend to be more honest than people, but at the same time they can be quite indifferent. Unlike humans, they rarely need to read the room. The more powerful the god, the stronger that tendency becomes."
"Then…"
"But that doesn't mean they don't know love."
Sunya smiled softly.
"They struggle with the same afflictions, they know how to share happiness, and they shed tears when they lose someone they love. In their own way, they try to cherish and look after those who matter to them. A little clumsily, perhaps."
"…If I'm not misunderstanding you, it almost sounds as though you're saying gods are no different from humans."
"Only that their circumstances differ, so we receive them differently. I hope you won't overthink it."
That he himself was a god, yet pulled the gods down to the same level as humans — Adapa could not understand it. What, exactly, was this man's purpose?
Throughout the conversation, Adapa's confusion only grew. And yet, at the same time, a desire to understand this man took root. It was closer to expectation than mere curiosity or interest. What, precisely, he was expecting — even Adapa himself did not know.
"Well, let's leave that topic there. Shall we talk about something else?"
"Something else?"
"Yes. I think this whole affair has given you a fair idea of what I'm capable of."
"That's true enough, but…"
"I personally need to build a reputation. So I'm thinking of making something a bit larger than this temple."
"Something larger than this temple?"
"Larger than a building. Something like… a city, for instance."
"A city, is it. I understand."
Adapa nodded — then nearly had his eyes pop out of his head from sheer shock.
Enki observed Sunya through the pond for the first time in a while. He still felt uneasy, but since Sunya had been spending so much time with Adapa of late, he had no choice but to look.
Fortunately, it did not seem as though Sunya was using Adapa to scheme at anything. He had simply built a vast temple with godlike craftsmanship. The temple's scale was one thing, but the fact that he had raised it alone in so short a time — design aside — was enough to startle Enki.
Watching Sunya afterward encourage Adapa left him with a peculiar feeling.
That one… his perspective is strange.
It had been true before as well, but listening to him speak, the boundary between human and god seemed relatively faint.
Is he trying to say that gods, too, are beings who need to be understood — just like humans?
Honestly, he could not call the idea itself purely bad. He understood the intent behind the words, but people would each receive them differently. Someone might twist them to justify rebellion against the gods.
As I thought… you are dangerous.
In Enki's eyes, Sunya was a boulder dropped into a still lake — a monster that raised vast ripples, muddied the water, and remade the entire ecology.
I'll need to watch him more carefully.
Even so, Adapa's worries left him unsettled. The truth was that Enki had forbidden Adapa from eating Dilmun's food for a complex set of reasons.
Among his children already praised as sages, if even one of them became a god of Dilmun — however imperfectly — there was no telling what fit Enlil might throw. Though Enlil had succeeded An as the second King of Gods by virtue of the authority he held, the foolish younger brother well knew how lacking his own abilities were. And yet his obsession with the throne was formidable; the slightest possibility of a threat to his seat made him as hypersensitive as a human girl in the throes of her cycle.
Enki also had no wish for Adapa to live out his days reading the moods of lofty gods. As one of the senior deities, Enki knew all too well that sometimes living was worse than dying. Mortals and demigods in particular, once they gained eternal life, more often grew miserable than joyful. The reasons differed from person to person.
Enki had acted out of consideration for Adapa in his own way — but that feeling, it seemed, had not reached his son.
"…Come to think of it, I haven't paid much attention to my children lately."
Even for a great god, looking after one's offspring was exhausting work.