On the third day, Enki was brought not to the throne room, but to the base of the great ziggurat. King Kur was there, alone, looking up at the monstrous staircase to the sky. Lagnun was a distant figure, taking measurements at the summit.
"You see a cage," Kur began, without preamble. His voice was calm, the fury of their first meeting banked to a cold ember. "I see a sanctuary. Out there," he gestured beyond the walls, "is chaos. Hunger, disease, the random cruelty of nature and man. In here, there is rule. There is safety."
"Safety is not the same as life," Enki replied.
"It is the prerequisite for it!" Kur turned, his eyes blazing. "You speak of souls and songs. I speak of preventing a child from dying of fever because a healer was not where a schedule demanded! I speak of ensuring ten thousand bellies are full, not one! Your 'garden' is a fantasy of unchecked growth. But growth, unchecked, becomes a weed. It chokes. It consumes. It dies."
He took a step closer, his voice dropping, not with anger, but with a terrifying conviction.
"That is the unwritten law you refuse to see. The law of the scale. To save the many, the few must be balanced. To ensure the whole is strong, the weak part must be removed. It is the law of nature, and I have simply given it a voice in brick and law."
Enki saw the unshakeable logic, the horrifying, beautiful purity of Kur's damnation. He was not a monster. He was a physician performing triage on the entire human race.
"And who are you," Enki asked, "to hold the scalpel?"
Kur's smile was thin, devoid of warmth. "I am the one who is willing."