The stars stretched endlessly above the desert horizon, scattered like fractions of forgotten stories across the oil of the night. The caravan rested by the edge of the oasis, its waters reflecting both moonlight and the quiet faces of those gathered around small fires. The passage had crossed mountains and gutters, timbers and plains, but now they were in the land of ancient echoes — the place where myths and trueness mingled like whispers of the wind. It was then, in the shifting beach of Mesopotamia and beyond, that the Tablets of Uruk still sounded to breathe through time.