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“I have nothing to give,” he says, a sort of flint in the imperious red of his eyes, “to she who lacks nothing.” And Gilgamesh smiles, a smile that is as dismissive as it is cruel. Enkidu shifts slightly; they have been on the receiving end of a smile like that only once, and they know that it is enough to cow even a goddess.
Which it must, now. Ishtar’s face flames, her radiance becoming blinding in the slanting light coming in through the tall windows. The sun is setting over the river now, but the evening dim doesn’t change the fact that Enkidu is able to watch in complete clarity as Ishtar turns on her heel, her white clothing flaring behind her like a sail, and strides out of the throne room. She does not sulk, nor does she slink away; rather, her spine is straighter than ever, and she casts a lashing glare back at the two of them. Proud, dangerous; despite themself, Enkidu feels the shadow of a chill run down their spine.
They don’t tremble, but they lean down toward Gil from where they’d been perched on his throne. “Are you sure that was all right?” they say into his ear, softly so that no one else could possibly hear, even if there had been someone else in the room with them. “She is a goddess, Gil.” There’s an unspoken implication about her power. Gilgamesh waves it away, free hand toying idly with the strands of green hair hanging over his shoulder.
“Goddess or not, I have nothing to fear.” His eyes are fixed on the closed door. His wolfish grin has fallen from his face, and instead his brow furrows in distaste. “Enkidu, you have seen what befalls Ishtar’s lovers for yourself. Would you rather I also lower myself to such a disgusting level?” His pupils are slits, his eyes narrowed.
“As if you ever would, even if someone else wanted,” Enkidu replies. They climb down from the head of the throne and instead sit on the armrest, swinging their feet up irreverently up to the place the king’s hand should rest. “You’re the most irrepressible king I’ve ever met.”
“And you’re one to talk,” Gilgamesh says, flicking them in the side of the head. He stands in a languid stretch. “Now, we have nothing to worry about in regards to that foolish goddess. But there is a marketplace to survey.” He casts his gaze outside the window, to the colorful stalls still bustling on the cobbles next to the river. “I wonder if that cretin of a shopkeep has decided to cease selling his counterfeit silks, or if I will have to force his hand.”
If mortals are unpredictable, then gods are tempestuous.
It is this thought that repeats over and over in Enkidu’s head, with alarming alacrity, as they stare into the sky over Uruk, perched on the highest spire of the Temple of Ishtar. The sky is stormy, almost yellow-gray, crackling with ozone. But their eye isn’t drawn to the impending downpour.
In the midst of the clouds is something that can almost be called a bull. It possesses the same hulking form, the same hunched back and sturdy build, the same horns, the same legs and hooves and tail, but the more Enkidu looks at it, the more the face looks human—or are they just seeing contours that aren’t really there, their eyes thrown by the flashing of the sky and the gloom of the clouds? The entire creature is almost out of focus, something that their mind—their human mind, they almost think—can’t quite make out.
There are footsteps behind them, and the soft clink of metal against metal.
“So,” Gilgamesh says, voice low, and eyes gleaming ruby in the dim light, “this is the retribution that that sorry excuse for a goddess has brought to Uruk.”
The Bull of Heaven hangs over the great city for years. The river, swollen and torrential from the ever-falling rain, floods its banks time and time again, washing away spices and fabrics and what little fruit makes its way into the markets. Nowadays, vendors have stopped setting up by the Euphrates; the colorful market that once thrived along the pathways is dull, devoid of color, its former splendor watered down and putrefied.
The fields outside the city, too, have rotted away. The great sheafs of land where once wheat grew lie barren, water gathered in eutrophied puddles against the weeds. Gilgamesh watches from his throne room, through the tall windows, as the city wastes away—its crops, its food, its people. His own treasury is deep, yes, but there is something isolated about the treasury of a king; it cannot be used to feed his people like this.
And so he watches as they go hungry, as many die, as children die. This is his city: proud Uruk, standing against the test of mortal and nature alike, should not be bowing to the whims of such a paltry excuse for a goddess. And what use is a king, he muses, if he cannot prevent even this? He turns from the window. “Enkidu.”
They drop from the rafters, unceremoniously quiet as always. Had he not seen them in the corner of his eye, he may have been started by their appearance. “What is it, Gil?” They stand, offer him the same smile as always. This time it’s tired; of course, their appearance never changes at all, unsettlingly beautiful and unnaturally perfect, but it’s in their voice and the way they hold themself. The years have not been easy, even for an immortal.
“I find I am quite tired of seeing this beastly face each day,” Gilgamesh says, voice drawling and purposefully devoid of irritation. An anger much deeper drags behind each syllable he speaks, though, gravel-like and dangerous. “What do you say we rid ourselves of it?”
He sees the thoughts pass behind Enkidu’s eyes— What about the gods? What of their sacred property? Have you forgotten that we have already killed one divine creature, and that to kill another would bring on even heavier consequences? —but they voice none of them. They look steadily at him, eyes clear and on his own. Just as he knows what they’re thinking, they know what he is. They can hear his indignation that his beautiful city, built by his own hands from the ground, could be brought low as such. They hear his pride, his foolish pride, the one thing he had never been able to let go of, but beneath that they hear such a love for humanity.
So Enkidu nods, and smiles at their king, and they follow him as he leaves the throne room and returns to the streets of the city he is so proud to rule.
The fight is a long one, and a difficult one, but it is exhilarating. It is a thrill, a danger, a rush: there is a sort of beauty to a fight, to the sound of chains and the warping of the air as a Gate opens, to the scent of iron and white clothing stained oxblood red. And so they both laugh, as they fight: not the sound of soft happiness but that of a fierce joy. They laugh, and the rain that runs down their faces washes away the red, and makes it all new again.
The Bull is slain, and Uruk begins to live once more. Slowly, the colored cloths return to the market; the carved trinkets are once more set out on a blanket by the Euphrates. It is still raining, and it will rain for weeks, but it lessens with each passing day: the river is no longer a torrent, and the people outside simply shield themselves with waxed cloths.
But it does not feel a victory, because the morning after he and Enkidu slay the bull, Gilgamesh wakes from a dream.
“Such a dream I had,” he says to his companion, tone curious, almost as though he’s seen an intriguing sight just far enough that he couldn’t make it out. He speaks, he recounts all he can remember, and as he describes the circle of the gods he stares out the window and then at his own fingers, as though he can hardly believe their function, because he realizes all at once that he is going to die.
His fingers thread heavy through his own hair, clench and pull at it although he can change some tenet of his destiny through the stinging momentary pain. His eyes dart from corner to corner, frantic. Until now, he had thought himself immortal; he had thought himself untouchable. He had thought himself the king of Uruk, the golden king: there was nothing that could tarnish that. Nothing—he was created to be perfect, to be infallible, to rule for many ages. He had power, he had riches, he could defeat even a god if he desired to. He—
Would die, very soon.
He laughs, first quietly with his head bowed, and then loudly. He curses the cedar, he curses the gods! Had he known slaying the Guardian of the Cedar Forest would lead to this, then he would have—well, what would he have done? He would have foisted the task of gathering kindling on someone else, someone without the power, the influence he had—anyone else—it’s only him who can’t die, who has to stay alive, to keep watch over the city, to lead it—
He stops laughing, and everything is eerily quiet.
As he lies dying, it’s the loss of his sight that hurts the most. It’s not physical: the other aches more than suffice to cover it up, his legs and his arms and his hands, as though each tendon is trying to tear itself away from his body, but he can no longer see the sunset over the Euphrates, lighting up from behind the temple district and the highest spires.
“It’s not raining any more,” Enkidu tells him quietly, hair softly tickling his face as they lean over him. They rest their head on his chest, light as a feather. Gilgamesh doesn’t tell them that he can still hear the sound of the tiny raindrops striking the bannister outside. He raises his hand, instead, and lifts a few strands of their hair.
“Look upon Uruk,” he says, and he feels their head shift. Tell it to me, as though a story.
“I can see the brickwork,” they say. “The fortification. The terrace. I can see the league of the inner city. The one beyond it is of orchards.” The words come faster and faster, as though they’re afraid, as though they have to say it all while they still can. “Still the next is the fields. Beside it, the precinct of temples.” They take a breath, though they have never needed to. “Three leagues, and the temple precinct of Ishtar.” Gilgamesh feels a warmth at his chest, the wetness of tears through fabric. “Such is the city of Gilgamesh.”
“Why do you cry now?” he says, hand stilling and the same challenging smile as usual on his face. “This is an immutable truth. I suppose those gods up there think that this is just.”
There’s a heavy silence. “I am a weapon,” says Enkidu. “A tool, not like you. You were made by the gods, and yet you had a soul from the beginning with which to defy them. How could two things from the same makers be so different? I… you were something with value, not a mere consumable. You were not something made to be burned. So why…” They shift, and their hands go to cup his face. He can’t see their expression, but still he reaches one hand out, abandoning the strands of hair it had been playing with, and rest it on their cheek.
“So why are you the one being punished? I am… it would be more suitable if I…” Their voice grows louder. “A tool with no value but the hand holding it should be destroyed when it fails to fulfill its duty, not—” They don’t manage to finish, as—
“You have value! Value no one else has! I declare it here and now. In all the world, I have only one friend. So—that value will never change, for all eternity!”
That imperious voice has never changed, and never wavered. It speaks with the command that only a great king has, silencing all else before and after it. Even on his deathbed, this was so; and it was in this way that the king spoke the truth into being.
There’s a sound like an aborted sob. “You… you’re still the most irrepressible king I’ve ever met,” Enkidu says, voice hanging low now as though a shroud. “Even though you’re like this, you can still force your views on others, can’t you?”
“I believe you should know by now that you’re one to talk.”
Enkidu laughs, and it mingles with the sound of the rain.
When the clouds finally clear, the king of Uruk is not there to witness the sun.