ReVISIONS by Julie E. Czerneda

Author:Julie E. Czerneda
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW

Everyone knew where Ilammadu lived: an enormous estate just outside Eridu, a three-hour walk south from Ur. So Enzu awoke before dawn, packed his tablets, kissed Mari, and headed out with only the stars and the desert wind for company.

The stars, the wind—and incessant thoughts. Could he really give up writing? Go back to working the land? Given the choice between a comfortable and secure life as a scribe for Sargon, and eking out a hardscrabble existence on a farm, would he be able to make a decision he could live with?

He felt that he finally understood Enkidu’s final curse. Civilization was more than humans could bear.

Columns of smoke from Ilammadu’s compound were visible a long way off. Even this early in the morning, big kilns were already busy firing the day’s production of tablets.

Before he could even see the bakehouse chimneys, guards intercepted him. Half expecting to be immediately turned back, he was surprised that they recognized his name. He was even more surprised when he was welcomed and bundled into a cart for the ride to the main house.

It was bigger than his whole schoolhouse had been back in its heyday. The walls were mudbrick, baked and painted to the height of a man, with glazed terra-cotta insets of lions and snake-dragons. Above the entrance rose wooden roof beams that seemed the thickness and length of whole trees. Enzu had never seen such construction outside of the temple and the palace. The guard led him through a maze of passageways, and into an inner courtyard, open to the sky.

In the center of the square stood an enormous stone apzu, an ornately sculpted ceremonial water tank, waist-high and dozens of cubits square. To the side was a table, shaded by an awning, and it was here the guard deposited the thoroughly dazed scribe.

“How much does a tablet weigh?” came a voice from the tank.

Incapable of more amazement, he simply answered. “A standard administrative text weighs about 4 mina.”

“Not easy to carry around. And you appear to have several in your bag.”

“Thirteen.”

A hand appeared on the lip of the tank, then the head and shoulders of Ilammadu rose, dripping. A crinkled, sun-baked face; Enzu was startled at how young he was, then realized his mistake. The clean-shaven chin was deceptive.

“In just ten years, we have enhanced reading speed by standardizing on left-to-right order. We have made obsolete the crabbed, stuff-it-in-one-tablet stylus-work of the scribe. And we have retrieved the simplicity and beauty of our signs. All byproducts of printing.”

“Your invention has been most successful.”

“And yet, no fundamental change in the tablet. The costs to prepare and move all that heavy clay.” Ilammadu nodded at the table. “What do you make of that material?”

Enzu looked next to him. Piled there was a stack of thin sheets, yellowish matter shot through with rough fibers. The top one was decorated with a series of small, ornate images.

“Paintings. On a substance I don’t recognize.”

“You will. That is papyrus, Enzu. And those are no paintings—that is written language from the kingdom of the Nile.

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