If you are that Gilgamesh who seized and killed the Bull of Heaven, who killed the watchman of the cedar forest, who overthrew Humbaba that lived in the forest, and killed the lions in the passes of the mountain, why are your cheeks so starved and why is your face so drawn? Why is despair in your heart and your face like the face of one who has made a long journey? Yes, why is your face burned from heat and cold, and why do you come here wandering over the pastures in search of the wind?

-The Epic of Gilgamesh

Adam

In Adam's dream the sea boiled, and Sabbac rose from it once more, red and terrible. Adam flew to meet him and they clashed as lightning tore the sky. But, unlike when they had fought in reality, Adam's strength was waning. Every time Sabbac touched him, Adam felt weaker, his muscles burning and shaking as they used to at the end of a hard day in the mine when he was a man. Finally, he broke away from the fight and hung in the air panting, lungs on fire.

Sabbac smiled, his teeth long and sharp as a wolf's.

"You think you have won. You have achieved nothing, slave," he said. "Hear the people curse you."

Despite the distance and the thunder that raged around him, Adam could hear them. The people of Shiruta were calling his name, screaming for help. Despite the distance he could see them all, hear them all. The legions of the dead had risen up again to feed upon the living, skeletons with hearts of fire. Adam flew at the demon again, trying to strike him with his fist, but Sabbac moved, impossibly fast, and took him in a chokehold before he could defend himself.

"You said you were no hero."

Sabbac was close enough for Adam to smell him, ash and corruption. He clawed at the demon's arm, but it might as well have been made of bronze.

"You are a prowling lion,seeking flesh to devour," Sabbac continued, holding Adam with what seemed like no effort at all. "You are a dragon spitting venom upon the land. You are the flood that smashes a city like a cup. See what you have done."

Sabbac turned Adam's head and forced him to look down. Below him, Khandaq spread out like a fine carpet - the mountains, the deserts, the cedar forests in the heights and the glittering rivers. But all around it, a fire was burning, rolling over the land in a red wave.

"They come," Sabbac said, gloating. "From east and west, north and south. The nations of the Earth. Because of you, they will reduce Khandaq to ashes. I would have made Khandaq great, but you will destroy it. It has already begun." He laughed a sickening laugh, and his form began to shift. He had a lion's head, then a bear's, breath foul with blood.

With an effort that felt like it tore his chest, Adam wrenched free of the demon's grip and seized him by the throat.

"You're dead," Adam growled. "Go back to the underworld, and beg your demon masters for the mercy they don't have."

Sabbac still smiled his wolfish, hungry smile. "Evil never dies," he said. "You should know that."

And at that, he changed into an enormous adder and sank his fangs into Adam's thigh.

Adam woke all at once, heart hammering as it hadn't done since his first transformation. He didn't recognize where he was. When he tried to sit up, there was a sudden, stabbing pain in his thigh and he hissed.

"Ah, you're awake." Adrianna's voice came from somewhere behind his head. "Please don't zap anything this time; some of these books are extremely rare."

She was there. So he wasn't in danger, then. He took stock of his situation. He lay on a soft couch, not quite long enough to hold him comfortably, so his head rested on one arm and his legs dangled off the other side. The couch was in a small room, and the walls he could easily see were covered by wooden shelves, which were stuffed to overflowing with stacks and stacks of books. Gold-tinted morning sunlight came through a window in the corner, on whose sill a dead plant sat withering in a cobwebby clay pot. The room smelled of dust and stale air, like it had been shut up for a long time and just reopened.

As he was looking around, Adrianna moved into his line of vision. She must have read the question in his face, because she answered it.

"We're in my office at the University." She smiled wryly. "Because someone kept putting holes in my apartment."

He smiled in return, somewhat shamefacedly. She wasn't wrong. He'd have to find some way to repay her for that. He tried to sit up, but Adrianna put her hand flat against his chest to stop him.

"None of that," she said briskly. "Let's take a look at you."

Adam allowed her to push him back against the cushions, and watched her as she examined him, her hand light against his forehead, his side, where the scratches from the previous night still glowed. She looked tired, her eyes shadowed and hair escaping from her attempt to tie it back. She hesitated a moment before gently touching his leg near the wound. A knife of pain lanced through him and he clenched his jaw.

"Sorry," she said. "How does it feel?"

Wrong. It felt wrong. This body, this form the gods have given him was so vital it was as if every part of him sang with pure light. Or it had been, because now there was a sickness in him and he could feel it twisting, pulling more and more of him into itself.

"Not good," he said. He pushed himself gently up to sitting, and his head swam briefly. He felt the icy touch of fear. What was happening to him?

"It doesn't look good, either," Adrianna said. "Look here."

She pointed at his leg, where someone - herself, most likely - had drawn a white circle around the wound.

"This was the extent of the…blackness…when we brought you here. You've been out for about five hours. And see…"

Near where she pointed, a little vein of darkness had grown from the wound, crossing her white mark.

"It's spreading."

Evil never dies. Adam heard in his mind, the echo of his nightmare.

No, he said to the memory of Sabbac. I beat you. I will beat this, too. There was no other choice.

There was a thin sheet of gray slate affixed to the wall beside the couch, something written on it in white. Adrianna plucked a small white stylus from a little tray under the stone and drew a new line on his leg, marking the extent of the spreading vein of darkness. Then she tossed the white stick back into the tray and rubbed her eyes, leaving a smear of dust across the bridge of her nose. Had she slept at all that night?

"Adrianna…" he started.

"I've been trying to figure something out," she interrupted, walking the few steps back to what must have been her writing desk, a piece of heavy wooden furniture, surface covered with books and papers…and sitting in the middle, in a little space cleared just for the purpose, a glowing Eternium blade. Adrianna leaned against the desk and touched the blade with one finger, turning it from side to side. "Can you tell me more about what happened in the mansion? How did you get stabbed?"

He told her. He had flown into the President's mansion to find the man and bring him out. Despite all his gifts, he couldn't see through walls, or hear any better than when he had been a man. But with his speed a search would take only moments, and with his strength no door or wall could bar his way. As he smashed into what had turned out to be the President's safe room, he had triggered some kind of device, and was blasted by Eternium-laced darts.

"Perhaps a modified Claymore mine," Adrianna murmured. "That explains the cuts on your side."

When he had stood, briefly stunned, Asim had stabbed him.

"That's it?" Adrianna asked. "He just…stabbed you? Himself? Personally?"

Adam nodded.

"I can't believe he thought that would work." Adrianna pushed off the edge of the desk and paced the room. Or rather, tried to. It was so cramped with shelves and furniture that she was practically turning around in place.

"It just doesn't fit. Missiles and mines are technological, but this…" she picked up the blade. "Look here."

She held it in the light coming through the window. It was leaf-shaped and fluted, like a stone spear point, the length of Adam's hand from wrist to fingertip. In the sunlight, Adam could see something etched into its surface.

"I think those are runes," Adrianna said. "I think it's magic."

She pointed to the slate and its white writing.

"I copied them as best I could, but I can't make any sense of them. I can't even recognize what alphabet they are."

Suddenly, she looked at him.

"Can you read them?"

He raised an eyebrow quizzically.

"Adam, when you were…before…all this," she gestured vaguely over him. "Did you ever learn to read?"

Adam almost laughed aloud. What did she take him for? Did he look like a priest? A robed astronomer? Perhaps a fat merchant writing to his suppliers to complain about the quality of his sesame seeds and copper ore? He had made bricks and dug canals.

"No," he said.

She took a book from a shelf, held it out to him. "What does this say?"

"The Golden Bough?"

"English." She slapped it down on her desk, picked up another. "What about this?"

"The Travels of Ibn Battuta," he said. "What…"

"Arabic." She dropped it on top of the first and picked up a loose sheet of that incredibly light, flexible paper that all their books were written on. The words written on it seemed to have been sketched in charcoal, but it didn't smear when he took it in his hand. He began to read.

"Lady of all the divine powers, resplendent light, righteous woman clothed in radiance, beloved…"

She snatched the page from him. "Sumerian," she said triumphantly. "You just read three different languages with three different alphabets. I've been wondering how you could speak English. It must be one of your gifts."

He had never considered it. With everything that had happened since his transformation, and then, since his waking, he hadn't questioned why he could understand the people around him, why, when Amon had held up that book in front of him to read the story of Khandaq's Champion, he had known what it said. Adam looked again at the walls of this little room, lined with stacks and stacks of books. He could read them, he realized. All of them. Divine wisdom, indeed.

"But these symbols," Adrianna's voice interrupted his thoughts. She pointed back up at the white writing. "They mean nothing to you?"

"No."

Adrianna groaned in frustration and tossed the blade back onto her table where it bounced and knocked into a stack of papers, then tried to start pacing again. When she was close enough, Adam took her wrist and gently pulled her onto the couch next to him. She didn't fight it, but leaned her head back on the cushions and closed her eyes.

She had a very graceful neck, long and slender. Adam could see her pulse beating under her delicate skin. Suddenly a memory came to him. Early in their courtship, before Ahk-ton had come, when they were both young, he and Siduri had gone to the river together. There she had found a young heron, fallen from its nest, but hadn't been tall enough to put it back herself. When Siduri had carefully passed the chick to him, he had been amazed how light it was, as if it was made of milkweed fluff. Its heart had been beating so strongly, its whole body shook with the beat. When Adam had held Adrianna in flight, she had felt like that. Light as air, but so alive, fiercely alive.

"I can think of two things," Adrianna said, eyes still closed. "Whoever made the blade was skilled at magic. They only had, what, a day and half to make the blade after you first woke up? They knew what they were doing. But they didn't come with the Justice Society."

She paused.

"And?" He asked.

"Our mystery magician had been in contact with Asim already. They already had the Eternium, had a way to get the blade to Asim, had his trust. This was not a new contact. And," she continued, "they knew Asim would most likely die delivering the blow. But they didn't care. As long as you were harmed."

That certainly suggested what kind of person it was who had made the blade. Skilled, connected, secretive and treacherous. A chilling prospect, when they had no way of knowing who it was.

"I think that was more than two things," Adam said.

Adrianna chuckled. "I'm very tired."

They sat in silence for a while - for how long, Adam couldn't say. Adrianna breathed softly next to him. Without the distraction of conversation his wound started to itch, then to burn, then to throb painfully with every beat of his heart. He would have liked to stretch his injured leg out again, but didn't want to disturb Arianna, who clearly needed the rest. A pleasant breeze came though the window, along with the muted roaring of those metal chariots the people used, and if not for the twisting, sickening pain in his leg it would have been very peaceful.

There was a knock on the door, and Adrianna was awake before it opened.

"Hey, big man! You're awake!"

It was Karim, Amon close behind, both dusty, carrying drinking cups and lightweight red baskets of what smelled like cooked fowl.

"Try to stay that way, because I almost threw my back out hauling you up here. Barely got you through the door."

Karim held a jocular smile for a few moments, but it faltered in the face of Adam's stoicism. Adrianna stood up briskly and took a cup from Karim, who held two.

"How's cleanup going?" She asked him.

"Good," he answered. "Lots of people helping out."

"Any looting?"

"Less than you'd expect."

"Any word from Abdel about the constitution?"

As the two continued their conversation, Amon took his mother's place on the couch next to Adam, a piece of fried meat in his hand, and spoke through the bite he'd already taken.

"I told mom you could use my room again, but she said there were too many holes in the walls or whatever." He rolled his eyes. "Hey, want a piece?" He gestured at the basket in his lap. "I bet you didn't have this back then. Did you even have chickens?"

Adam wasn't sure what kind of bird a chicken was.

"Ducks," he said. "And geese."

Adam considered the boy's offer. He didn't seem to get hungry in this body, but the smell of the food was…appealing. He took the chicken leg from Amon's hand. The first thing he would taste in 5,000 years. He took a bite.

When he'd been a slave, they had eaten beans and barley, and vegetables they scraped out of their ragged gardens. Never enough of anything. This was…rich. Crisp. It tasted of flour and oil, salt and herbs, and something both sharp and warming.

"Oh, man!" Amon laughed. "I should have been streaming this. Your face!"

"What about my face?"

"You had about twenty different facial expressions in ten seconds," the boy said with a grin. "Well, what do you think? Did you like it?"

Adam was vividly reminded of Hurut, when he'd been very young, showing off a beautiful river stone. See, father. How it shines.

"It's…different," he said.

"Give the man a break Amon," Karim said from his seat at Adrianna's desk. "Amon likes the Buffalo fire sauce. I prefer the sweet barbeque, if you want something that will leave you some taste buds."

"Is it too hot?" Amon asked. "You can have a drink."

He held out his cup, lidded, with a little reed sticking out the top. Out of curiosity more than anything, Adam took a sip. It was as cold as spring water, and sweeter than anything he'd ever tasted in his life.

Amon laughed again. "Your face! We should make a react video…wait, that reminds me."

He fumbled something out of his pocket, a small black tablet, one side as smooth and reflective as polished obsidian. When he touched it, the tablet flared with light and pictures.

Magic, Adam thought. They live in a world of magic, and it is nothing to them.

"I did some research," Amon began.

"You mean you were watching the TikTok when you should have been helping!" Karim interrupted.

Amon ignored him. "I found something."

He held up his little tablet to Adam. It showed people moving, like the box in Adrianna's apartment. As Amon deftly tapped the tablet, a light-skinned, dark-haired man in red punched through a stone column, leaped into the sky and flew…and in between his feats of strength and speed, danced and laughed.

"Well?" Amon said.

"He's a buffoon," Adam answered. On the tablet, the man broke an ax in two on his own hand and laughed like a child. Like a child. The Wizards had chosen another boy. Adam felt anger, then sorrow, then pity. Maybe men like him held too much anger to make good champions. But still, it didn't feel right.

"He's from Philadelphia, in America. The videos started just before you woke up - like, just three weeks ago. He has your powerset."

Amon flicked through images as deftly as a weaver selecting threads. Adrianna had stopped her hushed conversation with Karim and came to sit on the arm of the couch, peering over her son's shoulder, chicken leg in hand.

"Flight, lightning, strength, invulnerability. And look." On the screen a boy Amon's age broke a wooden club across the man's chest. "That lightning bolt is the same shape as yours, exactly. You were chosen by the Wizards," Amon said, voice thrumming with excitement. "What if they chose him too? What if he's the Champion of America or something?"

"Could be," Adrianna admitted, taking a bite of her chicken.

"I was thinking he might know something. Maybe I could get in touch with him through the YouTube channel," Amon read a name off the screen, "HeroManager. Maybe he could help!"

"No," Adam cut off Amon's suggestion, almost regretting it when he saw how disappointed the boy looked. "This is useful. But it would be too risky."

Tell the champion of another country that he was wounded? Reveal a weapon that Adam might one day have to use against him? Adam was no tactician, but he knew that would be extremely unwise.

"Well," Amon said, recovering his enthusiasm. "After mom fixes you up, then. You could probably get to America in like 10 minutes. How fast can you fly? Do you think you could beat a supersonic jet?"

"Ok." Karim stood up laboriously. "That's enough. The rubble won't haul itself."

Amon hopped up from the couch with the fluidity of youth. "When will you be home, mom?"

"Soon." Adrianna smoothed his hair and kissed him on the forehead. "Help your uncle. Do as he says. No running off. And no more TikTok!"

Amon rolled his eyes. "Fine."

After they had left, Adrianna sagged back onto the couch.

She cared so much, Adam thought. About her family, her people, even about him, who she had just met. That's what a ruler should be like, he thought. He had hated King Akh-Ton, and, thanks to him, the very idea of kings. If someone like Adrianna had been his queen, he didn't think he'd have minded.

"Your son has a lot of faith in you," Adam said.

Adrianna chuckled. "When he doesn't think he knows everything, he thinks I do."

Adam thought of his own father. The man had been like a tall cedar tree, holding up their house. When he had been a child, he had thought his father was the strongest man in the world, that he could do anything, protect him from anything. In a just world, he would have lived to a noble old age, would have held his grandson and blessed him. But he had died under the swords of Akh-Ton's men. When Adam had been forced with some of the other strong men of Shiruta to clear the dead from the streets, he had found his father there, and had to dump him into a pit with the others, hundreds of them.

That will never happen here again.

"I've been trying to protect Amon since he was a little boy," Adrianna said, eyes focused somewhere far away. "He's always been running out ahead of me. And now it's too late. He shot someone last night, Adam. He killed someone." She looked at her hands. Adam remembered the boy crying the night before.

He would have killed you, mom.

So that's what had happened.

"In your time," Adrianna continued, "Maybe that wasn't a big deal. Or maybe it was some rite of passage. But I never wanted him to have to make that kind of choice. That never should have happened."

Adam didn't know what to say. He protected you. It's what a boy should do for his mother. She didn't want it that way. She had wanted to overthrow a tyrant with a minimum of bloodshed. An impossible wish. But the contradiction was part of what made Adrianna herself. She was like a strong horn bow that resisted being drawn. Her refusal to bend was what gave her such strength.

"I've remembered something," Adrianna said. "When you say the word and transform, it heals your injuries, right?"

"Yes." When he'd escaped that undersea dungeon, he had been struck and shot, half frozen and nearly drowned. As soon as he had spoken the word of power, he had been as strong as a god.

"Does it work the other way?" Adrianna asked. "If you have a normal injury it doesn't follow you to your magical body. Now you have a magical injury…will it follow you to your human body?"

It made a kind of sense, Adam though. Divine and human. Balance and reflection.

"Of course," Adrianna looked at him, dark eyes shadowed by worry. "It could just kill you."

As if in answer, Adam's leg burned again. Was it his imagination, or had that black vein grown a little farther, crossing onto the white mark that Adrianna had made?

The last time Adam had transformed, he'd allowed himself to be bound and imprisoned because he'd thought it best. What if someone found him in his human form this time? Without his divine power he could be killed as easily as anyone. But what would happen if the black vein kept growing? What if it reached his heart? He felt weaker already, like a cracked jar leaking water, slowly, but inevitably. And didn't he owe it to the people he'd sworn to protect? He had fought a demon for them. Surely he could face this.

Adrianna waited patiently for his answer. He had been laid low before her already, not once, but twice. She had taken him in both times, putting herself at risk. If he could trust anyone at all in this strange place, it was her.

He would answer her. Looking into her eyes he took a breath, set his jaw.

"Shazam."

You know what's hard about writing from the perspective of a 5,000 year old man? The metaphors. I've done a lot of Googling about Mesopotamia over the past week, my dudes. The Sumerian quote that Adam reads is from the "Exaltation of Inanna" by the earliest named author - the priestess Enheduanna. Hope you're enjoying the story - thanks so much for reading!