The Fallen Ones

The weary pilgrim stepped into the gloom of the temple of Utu and paused for a moment to appreciate the cool air, a stark contrast to the sweltering heat of the desert sun outside. 

His eyes adjusted to the dark chamber, and all around him, rendered in a spectacle of lapis lazuli and gold, was an epic saga of the gods and heroes of the Sumerian people stretched out across the walls in long rows of uninterrupted narrative that crawled around the four corners of the large hall. The only illumination was provided by the giant doorway the pilgrim had just entered through and a series of evenly spaced small triangular holes carved into the walls just below the roof. The sharp beams of light cut through a murky haze—the source of which he could not surmise.

Unlike the busy streets of Larsam outside the temple walls, the inner house of Utu was completely devoid of any activity. He saw no fellow pilgrims. No worshippers had come to make offerings. A few priests had welcomed him in at the outer gate, but none were visible within the chamber before him. It was unlike any other temple he had been to, but he knew that this was no ordinary temple. This was the house of Utu, home to one of the seven Anun.

His sandaled feet echoed ominously as he approached a pair of Lamassu statues silently guarding the entrance to the next chamber. As he passed by the familiar design of the winged bull with a man’s head atop the broad shoulders, he could not quite shake the feeling that the faces turned to follow him. A mere trick of the light, he thought as he entered the next chamber.

The second chamber was considerably smaller than the first and was barren of any narrative. A pair of copper torches flickered at the opposite end. Between them stood two massive wooden doors with a golden disc mounted at the top of the doorframe.

The pilgrim approached the doors and was about to knock when a deep metallic voice echoed throughout the chamber.

“Why have you come?”

He whirled about and searched the space around him for the speaker. His eyes had not fully adjusted to the dark yet, and he wondered from which shadowy corner the voice might have come.

“Why have you come?” the voice asked once more.

“I seek an audience with the great Utu,” said the pilgrim in a near whisper. He felt a chill enter the gloomy chamber.

“What is your name?”

“My name is Nura.”

“From whence do you come?”

“From the great city of Uruk.”

“And what is your purpose there, Nura of Uruk?”

“I am a philosopher, a seeker of truth.”

No further reply came, and amidst the sudden silence, Nura began to question if he had heard the voice at all. He was ready to turn and leave when he heard a loud creaking, and the massive doors swung inwards of their own accord.

The chamber within was shrouded in a darkness unlike anything Nura had ever experienced. It was not merely an absence of light, but the stygian darkness of myth. 

“Enter,” the voice commanded.

Nura hesitated for a moment, staring into the emptiness within the doorframe, but driven by the innate curiosity of the philosopher he braved the unknown and stepped forward. The air turned cold, and he could see his own breath.

The doors creaked once more and closed shut behind him.

Nura’s knees trembled and his toes and fingers had already gone numb. Then, far ahead of him, he saw a faint glow and the outline of what appeared to be a statue of a man seated on a throne atop a raised dais. This then, Nura surmised, must be the idol of Utu.

The previously dim illumination increased in strength as he approached the idol, revealing dark basalt-like walls on all sides covered with an intricate pattern of gemstones which seemed to twinkle and glimmer in a rhythmic, almost musical, pattern.

He stopped at the foot of the dais and looked up at the large figure. It was pale like polished marble, and it was clad in royal garb. Behind it, attached to the throne, was a tangle of what looked like chains, or were they vines? Nura could not tell. Whatever they were, they connected the back of the seated figure to the throne.

But its most striking feature was the face. Its alabaster countenance was in its most superficial features not unlike that of a man. It was a kingly face, bearded and wearing the traditional headgear of Sumerian nobility, but its classic beauty was of a perfection the likes of which had never been borne by mortal men. Nura locked eyes with it, astonished by its magnificence. It was untarnished by the contortions of base human emotion. The dark glassy eyes were unclouded and eerily serene. They were dark immeasurable voids within which glinted the fires of the night sky as if they were a window to the cosmos that had once borne the figure seated on the throne.

“What do you seek?” The booming voice echoed throughout the strange chamber.

“I seek knowledge,” Nura said with a fragile tinge of desperation in his voice.

There was a moment of silence, and then the massive figure on the equally massive throne rose slowly, the vine-like chains rattling oddly as they were lifted from their resting place.

Utu began descending the steps, and his heavy footfalls rumbled across the chamber as he approached Nura, who was so overcome by dread that he threw himself to the floor and grovelled before the risen god. But his curiosity outweighed his fear, and he dared to raise his eyes from the dark floor and glance at the approaching colossus.

The chains remained fixed to the throne, yet stretched unnaturally as Utu approached, growing in length as if new links formed with each powerful step, allowing Utu to reach the small cowering man at the foot of the long dais.  

The giant came to a halt, and if Nura had stood up to his full height he would barely have reached up to Utu’s knees.

His sandaled feet were close to Nura’s lowered head, and unlike the carven face, Nura saw now that they were made of flesh, but not flesh like that of a man. It was as white as snow, with dark veins barely visible below semi-translucent skin.

Other Sumerians might have compared this to the pale complexion of the barbaric tribes of the north, but Nura had seen these men during his travels across the known world, and they were just that, men. They had been as warm-blooded as Nura, whereas the enormous feet before him looked like they had never felt the light of day. 

The Northmen had resembled the Sumerians in all but custom and complexion. They had possessed no extra limbs or digits, yet, to Nura’s astonishment, each gigantic foot bore six toes.

“Rise,” Utu commanded in his oddly metallic voice, which now terminated in a soft hiss of air that reminded Nura of a serpent and made him wince.

Nura composed himself and did as he was bidden. He looked up at the serene face towering above him and saw that the lips did not move as Utu spoke. It was impossible to tell if the face was a mask, for the perfection with which it was crafted was unmistakeably lifelike. If it was a mask, then the craftsman was not of this world.

“What kind of knowledge do you seek?” asked Utu in a grave tone.

“All knowledge, oh great one,” Nura said with a quiver in his voice. “For ignorance is torment, and I wish to understand the cosmos.”

“Your intentions are honourable, Nura of Uruk, but I cannot accede your request.”

Nura’s face contorted in an expression of restrained despair. Had he come for naught? Was he to live out his life with the torment of ignorance that plagued all thinking men?

“You say ignorance is torment,” Utu said, “and we the Anunnaki, Lords of the Constellations, recognize your plight.

“But know this,” the giant stretched out a strong six-fingered hand as if giving a command and Nura restrained himself from flinching, “knowledge can be used to heal, but it can also be used to destroy.

“Understand then, Nura of Uruk, that we withhold this information not because we deem you unworthy, but because we hold that knowledge must be earned, not given.

“Take heed, oh noble philosopher. To accept that you are lost in the magnificent mystery of the cosmos is not a curse, but a blessing. Take pride in knowing that the discoveries of you and your fellow man will surpass that of your parents, and your parents’ parents, and that of all your ancestors. And take even greater pride in knowing that your children, and their children, and their children’s children, will know more of the world than did you. For all of you stand on the shoulders of the thinkers of the past, and your heirs will likewise stand on yours.

“This is the greatest burden of man. But it is also his greatest gift. Go now.”

Having shared his wisdom with the philosopher, Utu returned to his throne and the great doors opened, allowing Nura to leave.    

***    

  As the false-wood doors closed shut the lights began to dim to a level that was comfortable to Anun eyes. Utu pressed a button hidden in the armrest of his throne and the rows of lights spread across the walls began blinking with mathematical precision as the chamber pressurized to a density ten times higher than that which was normal on the third planet.

Utu removed the breathing mask from his headgear and let out a sigh of relief. He did not enjoy this charade, but he knew it was necessary.

He pressed another button on the armrest and the tubes that connected the helmet to the pressurizer hidden within the throne detached automatically. He pressed a third button and one of the wall sections slid into the floor, revealing a hidden chamber. Within was one of the sleep/hibernation-capsules from the salvaged wreck of his research vessel—one of three now hidden within identical secret chambers scattered across the burning desert the Sumerians called home.

The capsule opened automatically as Utu approached it. Before the crash he had disliked sleeping within its cramped space, but he had tolerated it. Now, however, it had become a source of refuge, a place of comfort and familiarity, a small reminder of his homeworld.

Utu knew he would spend the rest of his life secluded in this chamber. He knew there would be no rescue mission. No distress call had been sent. No one knew where they were. Neither of the three Anun currently hidden on the planet knew where they were. They had been in hibernation when the solar storm hit their ship. It had crippled their vessel, wiped most of their systems—including navigation, and knocked them severely off course into unknown territory. They had awoken just in time to make an emergency landing on the nearest habitable planet—a planet that had proven both a blessing and a curse.  

Seven of them survived the crash, and being explorers all, they quickly succumbed to their curiosity as they realised the planet was inhabited, and against their better judgment, they decided to make contact with its primitive populace.

The result had been disastrous.

The harsh reality of life on the third planet had awoken in them a long-forgotten heritage of violence and hatred they had foolishly supposed buried beneath millennia of technological and ideological progress. This was a world where only the fittest survived. And survive they did. They had fought for it, killed for it, and it was not long before the Sumerians bowed down before them.

Perhaps they all went a little mad under the influence of the blistering sun of this ruthless primal landscape, a stark contrast to the serenity of the dark, icy caverns of their homeworld. Or perhaps, as Utu later came to suspect, they had much more in common with the humans than they ever openly dared to admit. Either way, it was not long before the seven God-kings turned on each other, and a civil war broke out between the self-imposed Lords of the Constellations, and again the people of Sumer suffered the consequences.

The rule of the Anunnaki God-kings finally came to an end when the three remaining explorers came to an agreement that they should remain an elusive presence among the Sumerians in the hope they would one day vanish into legend and myth.

 And though their lifespan was many times that of even the healthiest human, they too would one day succumb to old age and die, as all mortal beings do. The high priests would then dispose of their earthly remains in accordance with precise instructions they had sworn to follow. This would ensure that no remains of the alien explorers would be discovered by future archaeologists.  

Utu lowered himself into the pod and pressed a button on a small panel on the inside, making the hatch slide down before him until it locked with a pressurized hiss. Before the artificially induced sleep overtook him, Utu thought to himself that their self-imposed imprisonment was a small price to pay to ensure the natural development of the promising inhabitants of the third planet.