The midday sun beat down upon Ur, a relentless hammer upon the mud-brick city. Dust devils danced in the narrow streets, swirling around the ankles of merchants haggling over dates and barley. But within the cool, shadowed halls of the ziggurat of Nanna, a different kind of heat simmered – the stifling heat of rote learning, of endless repetition, the heat of a young mind yearning for more.
Enki, barely past his eighteenth year, sat hunched over a clay tablet, stylus clutched in his ink-stained fingers. Before him stretched a seemingly endless line of cuneiform symbols, a copy of the Hymn to Ninkasi, the goddess of beer. He knew the hymn by heart. He could recite it in his sleep. He could probably brew a better beer than Ninkasi herself, if given the chance. But no, here he was, yet again, painstakingly recreating the same symbols, the same words, for what felt like the thousandth time.
His fellow apprentices, a row of similarly bored-looking youths, scratched away diligently at their own tablets. Master Ibbi-Sin, a stern and portly man with a perpetually disapproving frown, patrolled the rows, his heavy sandals echoing on the stone floor. A fly buzzed lazily near Enki’s ear, a welcome distraction. He swatted it away, his gaze drifting towards the narrow window high above.
Through the opening, he could see a sliver of the Euphrates, shimmering like a silver serpent in the distance. Beyond that, the endless expanse of the Mesopotamian plain, dotted with fields of barley and date palms. A world teeming with life, with stories untold, with mysteries unsolved. And here he was, trapped within these dusty walls, memorizing hymns to goddesses he’d never met.
He sighed, the sound barely audible above the scratching of styluses. He longed to explore, to discover, to understand the secrets whispered by the wind and the stars. He yearned for knowledge that transcended the rote memorization of ancient texts. He wanted to know things, not just repeat them.
Master Ibbi-Sin stopped beside him, casting a long shadow over his tablet. Enki straightened up, his heart pounding.
"Enki," the master’s voice was a low growl, "is this Hymn to Ninkasi or a lament for a lost donkey? Your lines are crooked, your symbols uneven. Focus, boy! The gods do not reward sloppiness."
Enki flushed, his cheeks burning. "Forgive me, Master," he mumbled, dipping his stylus back into the ink. He tried to concentrate, to force his mind back to the task at hand. But his thoughts continued to wander, drawn by an invisible thread towards the lower levels of the ziggurat.
He knew he shouldn't. The lower levels were forbidden to apprentices. They were rumored to be filled with forgotten chambers, crumbling walls, and perhaps even… ghosts. But the allure was too strong to resist. He’d explored them before, of course, during his brief moments of freedom. He’d discovered passages long abandoned, rooms filled with broken pottery and indecipherable inscriptions. He felt a strange connection to those forgotten spaces, a sense of belonging he never felt in the temple school.