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340 In Uruk, the populace was left in chaos, leaderless and helpless. "Mob panic was brought about in Uruk ... its good sense was distorted." The shrines were broken in and their contents were smashed as the people asked questions: "Why did the gods' benev- olent eye look away? Who caused such worry and lamentation?" But their questions remained unanswered; and when the Evil Storm passed over, "the people were piled up in heaps ... a hush settled over Uruk like a cloak." Ninki, we learn from The Eridu Lament, flew away from her city to a safe haven in Africa: "Ninki, its great lady, flying like a bird, left her city." But Enki left Eridu only far enough to get out of the Evil Wind's way, yet near enough to see its fate: "Its lord stayed outside his city .... Father Enki stayed outside the city . for the fate of his harmed city he wept with bitter tears." Many of his loyal subjects followed him, camping on its outskirts. For a day and a night they watched the storm "put its hand" on Eridu. After the "evil-bearing storm went out of the city, sweeping across the countryside." Enki surveyed Eridu; he found a city "smothered with silence ... its residents stacked up in_ heaps." Those who were saved addressed to him a lament: "O Enki," they cried, "thy city has been cursed, made like an alien terri- tory!" and they kept on asking whence should they go, what should they do. But though the Evil Wind had passed, the place was still unsafe, and Enki "stayed out of his city as though it were an alien city." "Forsaking the house of Eridu," Enki then led "those who have been displaced from Eridu" to the desert, "to- wards an inimical land"; there he used his scientific powers to make the "foul tree" edible. From the northern edge of the Evil Wind's wide swath, from Babylon, a worried Marduk sent his father, Enki, an urgent mes- sage as the cloud of death neared his city. "What am I to do?" he asked. Enki's advice, which Marduk then related to his followers, was that those who could should leave the city—but go only north; and in line with the advice given by the two emissaries to Lot, the people fleeing Babylon were warned "neither to tum nor to look back." They were also told not to take with them any food or bev- erage, for these might have been "touched by the ghost." If escape was not possible, Enki advised hiding underground: "Get thee into a chamber below the earth, into a darkness," until the Evil Wind was gone. The storm's slow advance misled some of the gods into costly THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN