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168 function of many features of the pyramid's inner structure can be finally understood. Going up the Ascending Passage. Ninurta reached its junction with the imposing Grand Gallery and a Horizontal Passage. Ninurta followed the Horizontal Passage first, reaching a large chamber with a corbeled roof. Called the "vulva" in the Ninharsag poem, this chamber's axis lay exactly on the east-west center line of the pyramid. Its emission ("an outpouring which is like a lion whom no one dares attack") came from a stone fitted into a niche that was hollowed out in the east wall (Fig. 49). It was the SHAM ("Destiny") Stone. Emitting a red radiance which Ninurta "saw in the darkness," it was the pulsating heart of the pyramid. But it was anathema to Ninurta, for during the battle, when he was aloft, this stone's "strong power" was used "to grab to kill me, with a tracking which kills to seize me." He ordered it "pulled out .. . be taken apart . . . and to obliteration be destroyed." THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN