The following days were a controlled explosion of activity, orchestrated by Enki's quiet commands. The village became a living model of his mind.
The Hands moved out at first light, a line of figures armed with digging sticks and fire-hardened shovels. Enki and Lulal walked the route of the main canal, driving stakes into the ground to mark its path. Enki's eyes saw the gentle, perfect slope needed for the water to flow, a gradient invisible to everyone else. He showed them how to brace the canal walls with woven reeds and clay to prevent collapse. It was brutal work, but for the first time, it was work with a visible, glorious purpose.
The Heart gathered around Enki in the old fields. Here, the Botanist from 2999 awoke. He did not just give them seeds; he gave them principles.
"Do not plant all the same seed in the same earth," he instructed, holding up two different types of barley. "This one has deep roots. This one has shallow. Plant them together. They will not fight for food. They will share the soil, and the yield will be greater."
He introduced the concept of crop rotation, of letting a field "sleep" by planting legumes that would return nutrients to the tired earth. He showed them how to save the best seeds from the strongest plants, a slow, deliberate act of guiding evolution. It was not magic; it was a deeper listening to the language of the land.
The Voice was the most nervous group. Enki gathered them with Lulal, who unrolled a small, cured hide on which he had drawn maps with charcoal.
"You will not go to beg," Lulal said, his finger tracing a route to the lagoon people. "You will go to offer. We will have surplus grain because of the new fields. We will have fine baskets and tools. You will offer a fair measure for salt, and a better measure for timber. You will make our name synonymous with fairness and quality. That is a currency more valuable than gold."
Enki watched it all, a conductor ensuring the symphony did not descend into chaos. He moved from the canal works to the fields to the trade council, correcting a angle here, offering a forgotten botanical tip there, approving a trade proposal.
He was not a king on a throne. He was a gardener tending his most precious crop: human potential.
At the center of it all, the first foundation stone lay undisturbed. But around it, a vision was growing, clear and undeniable. They were not just building irrigation or planting new grains.
They were building the future. They were building Ur. A city that would not be a monument to one man's pride like Uruk, but a testament to the harmony of a whole people. The greatest city, born not from a god's command, but from a gardener's plan.