The first sight of Uruk stole the breath from Enki's lungs. It was not a city; it was a geological event. Walls of sun-baked brick, thirty feet high and terrifyingly straight, rose from the plain as if they had been extruded from the earth itself. The geometry was flawless, the lines clean and brutal against the organic curves of the landscape. Ziggurats, stepped pyramids of staggering scale, pierced the sky, their silhouettes asserting a dominance over nature that was both magnificent and horrifying.
Fields spread around it in a perfect grid, fed by canals that cut across the land with mathematical precision. There was no wildness here, no happy accident. Every blade of grass, every brick, seemed to exist solely by the permission and design of a single, towering intellect.
Lulal beamed, his chest swelling with pride. "Magnificent, isn't it? Order from chaos. A perfect system."
Enki said nothing. The sterility of it chilled him to the bone.
The gate was not merely an entrance; it was a declaration, a towering archway of fitted stone flanked by bastions. The guards here were components of a system, uniformed and disciplined.
Lulal stepped forward. "I bring a guest for the king! A master craftsman from the west!"
The guard captain, a man whose face was a roadmap of old scars, looked past Lulal to Enki. His gaze was analytical, dissecting.
Enki did not wait. He stepped forward, his own eyes meeting the captain's. He pointed a finger, not at the gate itself, but at the massive, counter-weighted mechanism of wood and stone that held it open.
"The pivot stone on the western winch is fracturing from within," Enki said, his voice flat and certain. "The weight distribution is uneven by seven degrees. It will fail within the month. And when it does, the gate will not simply close. It will fall."
The captain's stoic mask cracked. A flicker of unease, then pure shock. His eyes darted to a man standing slightly apart—the master architect, dusted with stone powder. The captain's horrified glance said it all: this dusty traveler had just uttered a secret known only to the city's inner circle.
Enki's gaze never wavered. "I have come to study the walls."
The captain stared for a long moment. This was not a craftsman. This was something else. Something that understood the city's bones. He barked a sharp order. The guards parted like a single organism.
"The king will see you," the captain said, his voice tight. "Now."