For weeks, Enki worked in a secluded spot upriver from the outpost. He built a small, efficient furnace of mud-brick, its draft channel a design that would have made a 30th-century engineer proud. He traded the last of his valuables for tiny, precious amounts of copper and tin ore. The process was agonizingly slow, a descent from the world of nano-forges and plasma torches to the realm of bellows and fire. But finally, he held it: a small, glowing ingot of true bronze.
He worked it with a stone hammer and anvil, not with the perfect geometry of a machine, but with the intuitive skill of a master whose knowledge spanned millennia. He was not just shaping metal; he was pouring his intent into it. He created an adze—a woodworking tool with a curved, bronze blade. It was a simple thing, but it was perfect. The edge was sharp enough to shave hair, the balance so precise it felt like an extension of the user's own arm. It was not a weapon. It was a argument. A key.
At the outpost market, he laid it on a cloth. He didn't need to call out. The tool itself did the work. Its unnatural sheen, its flawless form, drew a crowd. Traders and craftsmen gathered, their murmurs a mix of awe and avarice. They had never seen such metal, such craftsmanship.
The commotion drew a young man who had been examining pottery at a nearby stall. He was dressed in fine, simple linen, his eyes bright and intelligent. He moved through the crowd with an unconscious authority. It was Lulal.
The crowd parted for him. He knelt, ignoring the offers being shouted around him, and picked up the adze. His touch was reverent. He ran a thumb along the blade's edge, his eyes widening at its sharpness. He held it by the haft, making a gentle chopping motion in the air, feeling its perfect, effortless balance.
He looked up, his gaze finding Enki's through the crowd. He saw not a mighty king or a fellow god, but a weathered, quiet man with eyes as deep and old as the river itself.
"Who are you?" Lulal asked, his voice a whisper of pure, insatiable awe that cut through the market's noise. "Who taught you to speak to the metal like this?"