Read Online The Woken Gods by Gwenda Bond - Free Book Online

vanish and expect that to be fine, that I’ll take the money and go. We owe each other something more than that.
    I want us to, anyway.
    The way the path curves reminds me of a twisting snake, and not the harmless plastic kind around Bree’s neck. We are careful to stay on it, winding through muddy river delta swampland, all the way to the foot of the ziggurat. The stone and sand sparkle, like the sun itself is inside the bricks.
    “Up we go!” Apple-cheek announces, a greedy hunger beneath her cheer.
    Her excitement is as troubling as anything else.
    The long ramp that extends down the front like a tongue is our new path. To the sides are wide steps carved out of the pyramid-shaped base. Maybe talking will help distract us.
    “Tam,” I ask quietly, as we climb, “tell me about Enki.”
    “You already know the Sumerians were among the first, the oldest, gods that we know of.”
    “Tell me something I don’t know, I mean.” We all have a working knowledge of the tricksters and the major pantheons. Public schools scrambled to add better no-longer-mythology units after the gods woke up. “And let’s drop back. More time to see what the deal is up there.”
    The three of us slow to let the revelers pass us.
    Tam goes on. “I guess you remember that there are a lot of them? More than most other pantheons combined – one scholar estimated almost four thousand. And in that number are chaos monsters, sentient ancient darknesses, demons with animal heads. Enki has always been one of their leaders, sometimes the leader. He’s the lord of the watery deep, the abzu. Think of it as the mysterious water that yielded creation. For what it’s worth, Enki was always supposed to be one of the good guys. Even before.”
    “How good?” I ask.
    There are pictures of bearded priests and winged creatures and ornate inscriptions in long forgotten languages carved into the ziggurat alongside the ramp.
    “One of the most famous stories about him involves the creation of humankind.”
    Bree says, “Hang on… I thought that, yes, they’re older than people, but they didn’t create us. We’re just different species, different evolutionary tracks.”
    “Listen to you, evolutionary tracks,” I tease. “Someone’s been doing their science homework. Fancy.”
    Bree pulls a face at me.
    Tam shrugs. “So the Society claims. Who knows for sure? But we do know that gods exist and what they’re like. They don’t care about right and wrong, not like we do. A lot of them view us as…”
    “Cows?” I supply. “That they can kill and eat and… do whatever else they want with? And my dad may be giving them carte blanche to do just that and we’re walking in the front door of one of their houses. OK. This is making me feel so much better. Please, go on.”
    “So, there are lots of versions of this story. In the one I like the best, Abzu is still a being – a god himself – in addition to being the mysterious water. The older, more powerful gods are basically using the newer, less powerful ones as slave labor. And the new ones start complaining. It’s loud, because Abzu starts making noise of his own, about how he’s going to flood the entire world, drown everything out. Enki’s mother decides her son can take care of Abzu, so she goes to wake him up.”
    “But supposedly the new gods were being so loud – how’s he asleep?” Bree asks.
    “Chalk that up to story blur.” Story blur is the part of myths that don’t make any kind of sense. “Or maybe he’s just a really deep sleeper. Enki does finally wake up for his mother, and he then magically puts Abzu to sleep and confines him below his city.”
    “Where do the people come in?” I ask.
    “Oh,” Tam says, “right. Well, everyone agrees that gods shouldn’t be doing all this hard labor, so Enki makes people, to do the work for them.”
    “Cows,” I say. “Labor cows. I’m not getting the part where he’s a good guy.”
    “Later there are tons of myths about