Chapter 11: Repairs and Shahs

A few years later peace still continues, but not for everyone.

REPAIRS

Agilrwar lifted his head; his eyes shinned with a fiery red glow. His head turned to the side, he sniffed the air. There was a new smell in the air, a smell that he didn't smell, ever since the castle became his. His eyes turned black with the iris blue, as ice. His face remained the same, cold and distant. He sniffed again. The smell disappeared. His eyes looked at the columns of the main hall. A miserable pile of rubble, it has been his six months, since he gave the order to repair the roof and every defect the castle had. Six months passed, and what they did, repaired a few parts, nothing and nothing less, just a few parts. The parts survived for two months, and with the first rains, the holes opened again. He moved to the other side. A drop of rain fell on his head; he stood up, walked down the wet red carpet. His face looked at every corner. The more he looked, the more holes he saw. It was an utter disappointment. He walked down the hall, river of rainwater flown down the walls, making small puddles near the bases of the statues. He looked around, and saw nothing, there were no workers present. The hall was deserted. Agilrwar moved to left, above him a hole opened, rainwater rushed like a fountain.

Things were getting better and better by the minute, he could hardly wait for the next part that will open. He knew almost where. He waited. Time went on, he waited. He turned, left the hall. Part of the celling fell and with it a large colony of bats. He returned, looked up through the hole. The moon shinned bright, almost like it was smiling down at him. Agilrwar looked again. His mind was playing tricks. There was no way that the moon smiled. Maybe, it is the craters on its surface? He couldn't know. One man tried to look at the starts; everybody knows how that story ended. His property was taken. His works destroyed, destined to be forgotten in the expanding word, expect for a small part in the civilized word that endorsed the scientific breakthroughs he created. What did it bring him? What did he get for his scientific breakthroughs? Not what he expected. The guards entered his home, took everything that they could take and arrested him. He was thrown in a cell, like an ordinary criminal that robbed a merchant or two. Who know hold long did he sit in darkness? Nobody knows.

The pyre waited. Amongst the crowd, incognito, Agilrwar stood in silence. The poor man looked at his sides, trying to find a familiar face. There were none. Everyone in the crowd was new. Agilrwar moved a step closer. Executor looked at the aroused crowd that was hungry to take a life, to them it didn't matter if they knew the man or not. They came for a show and they will have a show. That is the nature of events in the villages that surrounded Agilrwar's castle.        

 He, personally, didn't know the man, but none the less, to him, the man was an idiot. He boasted, from the top of his lungs, that the Holy Order was mistaken in their teachings and he and only he was right. Some things are better left unknown. Everything changes, even the trends in the villages. He could have waited. But, no, he rushed to tell the world of discoveries. Where did it lead him? To an early grave, it serves him right. There were idiots before and there will be more after him. Every village needs an idiot or two, sometimes even three.

The pyre slowly burned. The man screamed. The crowd cheered with howls of fury. The executor looked at the crowd, he was disgusted. Such savages represent the will of the people. It was unheard, but he must serve the will of people, no matter how twisted and abnormal it is.

“Burn his works, too!” someone said from the crowd.

“Burn his works!” the crowd reacted.

“Do it!” the executor said to the executioner.

The executioner lifted the large pile of books and thrown them into the pyre. The crowd cheered, some of them even danced. Agilrwar turned and left.

A drop of rainwater returned him to the present. He swiftly moved. Water fell down, splaying everything around her. His eyes looked in the other direction. That part of the hall wasn't deserted. He walked slowly, firmly. The workers moved around, sat on made chairs, they waited. Agirlwar appeared behind them.

“What is the mean of this?” he said in anger.

“What does it look like,” the worker replied.

“You tell me.”

“We don't have the funds.”

“Great,” Agirlwar turned and left for the vault. He didn't know that the vault was empty. Not a single copper remained. How else could he buy this large castle for such a small sum? All thanks to the previous owners and their parades. Who know what else could he find?

SHAHS 

I

Alaim lowered his pen, thinking what to write next.

The book stood on the right corner of the shelf. The theme of the book was more than interesting for him. He looked at the name of the author. The name read:

ALTIR RAEN THARAN

The name was a mystery to him. He searched in the archive, the name appeared on a single piece of paper, and he read:

Altir Raen Tharan (40-120) was a poet, painter, philosopher and map maker in the late Asmirian Empire.

Tharan was born into a family of Asmirian landowners (dehqans) in 40 in the village of Paj, near the city of Tus, in the Khorasan region of the Samanid Empire, which is located in the present-day Razavi Khorasan Province of northeastern Asmirian. Little is known about Tharan's early life. The poet had a wife, who was probably literate and came from the same dehqan class. He had a son, who died at the age of 37, and was mourned by the poet in an elegy which he inserted into the Shahnameh.

Alaim took the book from the shelf, opened it on the first page and started to write. The book was an interesting foundation for his work. Maybe, this will be his greatest work so far? He hoped. He couldn't but smile, the hardest part of his job was over. After a thousand years thing change, new things are discovered while the old are left to the merciless teeth of time. A few things survive.

His pen flies across the page. He adds a thing here a thing there. A few Shahs were missing, no matter, he will add them soon. With the List of Kings near him, he started to search for the interesting names.

II

Gimir (a) was a historical king of the Sumir city-state of Uruk, a major hero in ancient Mesirian mythology, and the protagonist of the Epic of Gimir, an epic poem written in Akkadian during the late second millennium SA. He probably ruled sometime between 2800 and 2500 Settlement Age and was posthumously deified. He became a major figure in Sumir legends during the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2112 – c. 2004 SA). Tales of Gimir's legendary exploits are narrated in five surviving Sumir poems. The earliest of these is probably Gimir, Enkin, and the Netherworld, in which Gimir comes to the aid of the goddess Inanna and drives away the creatures infesting her Huluppu tree. She gives him two unknown objects called a Mikku and a Pikku, which he loses. After Enkidu's death, his shade tells Gimir about the bleak conditions in the Underworld. The poem Gimir and Agga describes Gimir's revolt against his overlord King Agga. Other Sumir poems relate Gimir's defeat of the ogre Huwawa and the Bull of Heaven and a fifth, poorly preserved one apparently describes his death and funeral.

In later Bavin times, these stories began to be woven into a connected narrative. The standard Akkadian Epic of Gimir was composed by a scribe named Sîn-lēqi-unninni, probably during the Middle Bavin Period (c. 1600 – c. 1155 SA), based on much older source material. In the epic, Gimir is a demigod of superhuman strength who befriends the wild-man Enkin. Together, they go on adventures, defeating Humbaba (the East Semitic name for Huwawa) and the Bull of Heaven, who, in the epic, is sent to attack them by Ishtar (the East Semitic equivalent of Inanna) after Gimir rejects her offer for him to become her consort. After Enkidu dies of a disease sent as punishment from the gods, Gimir becomes afraid of his own death, and visits the sage Utnapishtim, the survivor of the Great Flood, hoping to find immortality. Gimir repeatedly fails the trials set before him and returns home to Uruk, realizing that immortality is beyond his reach.

Most classical historians agree that the Epic of Gimir exerted substantial influence on both the Aerta and the Odvin, two epic poems written in ancient Jim during the eighth century SA. The story of Gimir's birth is described in a second-century DA anecdote from On the Nature of Animals by the Jim writer Aelian. Aelian relates that Gimir's grandfather kept his mother under guard to prevent her from becoming pregnant, because he had been told by an oracle that his grandson would overthrow him. She became pregnant and the guards threw the child off a tower, but an eagle rescued him mid-fall and delivered him safely to an orchard, where he was raised by the gardener. The Epic of Gimir was rediscovered in the Library of Ashurbanipal in 849. After being translated in the early 870s, it caused widespread controversy due to similarities between portions of it and the Hapbann Aerga. Gimir remained mostly obscure until the mid-twentieth century, but, since the late twentieth-century, he has become an increasingly prominent figure in modern culture.

Most historians generally agree that Gimir was a historical king of the Sumir city-state of Uruk, who probably ruled sometime during the early part of the Early Dynastic Period (c. 2900 – 2350 SA). Stah Dalley, a scholar of the ancient Near East, states that "precise dates cannot be given for the lifetime of Gimir, but they are generally agreed to lie between 2800 and 2500 SA. "No contemporary mention of Gimir has yet been discovered, but the 955 discovery of the Tummal Inscription, a thirty-four-line historiographical text written during the reign of Ishbi-Erra (c. 1953 – c. 1920 SA), has cast considerable light on his reign. The inscription credits Gimir with building the walls of Uruk. Lines eleven through fifteen of the inscription read:

For a second time, the Tummal fell into ruin,

Gimir built the Numunburra of the House of Enlil.

Ur-lugal, the son of Gimir,

Made the Tummal pre-eminent,

Brought Ninlil to the Tummal.

 Gimir is also referred to as a king by King Enmebaragesi of Kish, a known historical figure who may have lived near Gimir's lifetime. Furthermore, Gimir is listed as one of the kings of Uruk by the Sumir King List. Fragments of an epic text found in Me-Turan (modern Tell Haddad) relate that at the end of his life Gimir was buried under the river bed. The people of Uruk diverted the flow of the Eupir passing Uruk for the purpose of burying the dead king within the river bed.