The final words sank into the temple like stones cast into still water. They rang clear and terrible, and for a heartbeat Rowe tasted triumph and the cold certainty of doom. He closed his eyes, bracing to be swept away by the inevitable consequence of his provocation. Any king, affronted thus before his people, would spill blood to restore order. Let alone Gilgamesh.
For a long instant it seemed that the storm had come: Gilgamesh's rage was a palpable pressure, a presence that made the rafters feel lighter and the air thicker. The King, who had been mocked and named and stripped of his aura by the clay tablet's words, should have struck. Every instinct in the hall expected the lightning to come.
And yet Gilgamesh did not move to kill.
Instead, something unreadable crossed his features — beneath the anger there stirred a different current: thought. The King's crimson eyes, those terrible, snakelike pupils, narrowed not only with fury but with an odd, almost reluctant curiosity. There was humiliation there; there was, too, an unexpected recognition.
Rowe had hurled an accusation that cut at more than mere pride: "The King should be chosen by the people." The phrase detonated against the assumptions that girded Uruk — that divinity, not common consent, bound ruler and ruled. Gilgamesh had been raised atop that assumption. He hated being bound by gods; his rebellion against their design had forged his cruelty. He had flung away piety and embraced sovereignty as a thing to be seized on his own terms.
And yet Rowe's line — shouted, blunt, human — landed strange and true. If anyone could be expected to deride the gods and resent their yoke, it was this King. To hear a subject call not merely for rebuke but for a system in which kingship meant serving the people — that notion pricked something in him he had not expected to feel.
In the collapsed hush of the Pantheon, Gilgamesh's stare swept the kneeling forms. Even beneath the weight of awe and fear, he saw movement: eyes rising, small faces hardening with an old, private agreement. The priests, the servants, the Old Priest trembling at his side — some of them, at least, had been stirred. The words Rowe had risked his life to speak were not wholly alien to their hearts.
The Old Priest's tears answered that realization. He had thought himself wise to shelter the temple against the King's chaos; he had feared the gods' displeasure and Gilgamesh's wrath. But seeing Rowe expose the truth — blunt, reckless, and true — the old man could not help but weep. The youth had said what the elders had only whispered.
Gilgamesh inhaled, a sound minimal and unexpected after so much tension. Then, with a chuckle that was half-derision, half-thaw, he inclined his head the smallest fraction. It was not the fury the hall had braced for; it was acknowledgment.
"Interesting," he murmured, voice like a blade sliding along rock. "For one so small to shout so loud…"
Rowe, who had shut his eyes and readied himself for death, opened them in confusion. The expected strike had not come. Instead he met the King's gaze and something like strange approval: the vermilion pupils reflected not only contempt but a flicker of undisguised admiration.
"Though your cries are as irritating as village dogs' barking," Gilgamesh said, his voice carrying both mockery and a reluctant respect, "and though your manner is as nauseating as maggots in filth—" he paused, the insult landing like a stone, "—this King has felt the loyalty in your tone, the conviction that you would die for your words."
The confession — for that was what it sounded like beneath the ribald phrasing — rippled through the chamber with the weight of judgment and the bait of possibility. The priests exhaled long, trembling breaths of relief. Men who had knelt as if nailed to the floor looked up like people emerging from a long nightmare. The Old Priest wept openly; his relief was the kind that tastes of both grief and wonder. Around Rowe, several elders tottered to their feet, hands clasped as if in prayer and gratitude.
Only Rowe remained uncertain. His mind raced in chaotic questions. What—what was happening? Who was he? Where was this supposed blade of justice that would pierce him for daring to speak? Gilgamesh's unexpected leniency sabotaged his neat script like a sudden rainstorm. This doesn't fit your character sheet— Rowe thought wildly. You're supposed to be furious. You're supposed to kill me on the spot!
But thought did little in the face of the King's decision. Gilgamesh rose, the red circuits in his skin flaring as he stretched out one hand in a loose, almost theatrical dismissal.
"This King acknowledges your loyalty and—" he said, twisting the phrase with a smirk, "—forgives your offense against this great and noble King. Go back and weep, and be grateful for this King's magnanimity. Today's matter ends here. I am tired; I shall return to my rest."
And with that, he turned and strode toward the main gate.
The motion should have been met with protest. Under ordinary circumstances the ritual would not be interrupted mid-ceremony; attendants would have challenged a departing monarch, and oracles—perhaps even the goddess Ninsun—would have interceded through the rite. But the hall remained stupefied, as if the sequence of events had dislocated time itself. No one rose to stop him. No divine voice thundered down to bind his feet.
As Gilgamesh crossed the threshold, he turned once and offered an odd, unforced thought—a compliment almost—about Rowe's performance. In his own mind he rationalized: the man had done the King a service. He had cleared the air; he had given voice to a grievance that bruised the realm under Gilgamesh's rule. That was interesting, useful. In the rare moods between contempt and boredom, the King felt a flicker of favor toward the bold young priest. "A mystery worth noting," he might later tell himself. "This mongrel has courage."
He left, his step ringing through the courtyard, leaving a hall of collapsed figures and one solitary, bewildered Rowe.
The priests, who had folded themselves to the floor only moments before, began to stir. They gathered around Rowe with a warmth that struck him as both sincere and wildly misplaced.
"Priest Rowe—" an old cleric began, voice thick with emotion. "We are relieved... thank you for saving your life." Another sighed, half laughing, half crying: "Why did you not tell us beforehand? We could have stood with you! Onegaishimasu—speak together next time, not alone."
The High Priest padded forward on uncertain legs. He placed a trembling hand on Rowe's shoulder. "It is better to bear such weight together," he said bluntly. "We are your brethren." The Old Priest's tears wet Rowe's robe; his face was a map of years and something like pride.
Rowe's chest tightened in a way that might have been moved by the tenderness, except that beneath the warmth a stubborn, absurd little hope kept nudging him. You told me this would work. You promised me a swift death. For a moment he almost laughed at the cruelty of fate. The elders were kind; they had always been kind in their flawed, human way. He felt affection for them in a weird, sudden lurch—and then annoyance flared. My plan is ruined.
A murmur rippled through the chamber: "Look—the gods!"
Heads snapped upward. From the hollow dome above Anu's effigy a column of light descended, trembling and bright, its edges humming with a presence that was not exactly the full incarnation of a deity but enough to bend the air. In this age the gods no longer walked among mortals in their true bodies; still, they could issue will, oracle, and favor through such phenomena. The light was the sign of the gods' attention.
Rowe's heart leapt like a trapped thing. This is it! he thought. This is the divine reaction that will condemn me. The gods will punish the interruption of their festival. Death comes at last! Relief and apprehension warred in him; he welcomed the dome's radiance as a final instrument of fate.
But the message that flowed down in resonant, uncanny tones was not the death he expected.
"Priest Rowe," the voice declared through the light—ancient, resonant, and threaded with a calm that made the hairs on the monks' arms stand up—"you pointed out what was flawed in the governance of the King, and though you showed disrespect toward the Festival, the courage with which you spoke—even unto death—has been observed."
A ripple of stunned silence met the pronouncement, quickly displaced by relief and praise. The gods—so the voice continued—had judged and chosen pity and approval rather than wrath. "Because of your fearless counsel," the divine tone intoned, "the gods pardon your transgression. Your actions in the human world shall be permitted; our favor, and that of the King, stands."
A roar of assent rose from the gathered priests. They bowed their heads and lifted trembling hands to the light, murmuring thanks—"Arigatou-sama," some whispered—emotions spilling like water from a burst dam. They praised the King's wisdom and the gods' mercy. They spoke of balance restored, of a rare clemency to be remembered.
And Rowe, who had craved a sealed fate, felt his expression freeze into something very near to despair.
He had wanted his death to be undeniable, the sort of ending that would steal his name into songs and into the Throne's ledger. He had sought an unnatural, unavoidable death—one that would propel him to the recognition he had carved into the Throne of Heroes. Instead the gods had forgiven him; the King had pardoned him; the priests adored him. The ritual that should have ended with his blood instead ended with benediction and praise.
For a breath he stood there, the absurdity of it all folding into him. Then—quiet, bitter—he thought, Why is this so difficult? He had fashioned a trap, sharpened words into a blade, and yet the world had offered him mercy instead of the blade he'd been counting on. The gods' favor, the King's grudging nod, the priests' kinder faces—each one felt like a small theft of the fate he had calculated down to the grain.
And still, in the noise of relief and blessing, Rowe caught a different, smaller truth: his words had landed. That, at least, could not be taken away. Whether the story would bend his way remained to be seen—but one way or another, the world had shifted. The die had been cast; only how it would be read by gods and ledger and future ages was yet unknown.