Between the Rivers

9

“Enimhursag! Enimhursag!” the Imhursagut chanted as their god strode with them toward the Giblut. But Sharur saw what they, perhaps, did not: Enimhursag did not stride out in front of them to take new land away from Gibil. Where his men had not gone before him, he had no power.

Some few of the Gibli peasants, not realizing this, fled before his awesome apparition. Beside Sharur, Habbazu asked in a shaken voice, “Where is Engibil, to withstand the god of Imhursag?”

“Engibil does not withstand in his own person the god of Imhursag,” Sharur answered.

“Engibil has not withstood in his own person the god of Imhursag for many years,” Ereshguna added.

“Not even in the days of my youth did Engibil withstand in his own person the god of Imhursag,” Sharur’s grandfather’s ghost said, abruptly announcing his presence to his kin.

Habbazu could not hear the ghost not having been acquainted with Sharur’s grandfather in life, but what the living men said was enough—was more than enough—to dismay him. “Engibil will not withstand the enemy for his own city?” he cried. “Then truly you are lost! Truly all is lost!” He made as if to flee after the handful of Gibli peasants who had fled.

“No, all is not lost,” Tupsharru said as Sharur set a hand on the thief’s arm to steady him. “Gibil and Imhursag have fought many wars since Engibil last withstood in his own person Enimhursag. We Giblut have won almost all those wars.”

“This is so,” Habbazu said slowly, as if reminding himself. Panic drained from his face, to be replaced by puzzlement. “I know this is so, but I do not understand how it can be so. How can men stand alone against men and a god and win?”

“We do not stand alone,” Sharur said. “This is Engibil’s land. He has dwelt on it longer than we. He aids in its defense. But we are not his slaves, as the Imhursagut are Enimhursag’s slaves. We do not need him with us to go forward against the foe.”

“And now,” Ereshguna said, drawing his bronze sword with its gleaming edge, “it is time to talk no more. It is time to go forward against the foe.”

Forward against the foe they went, Habbazu dubious and rolling his eyes but no longer ready to turn and run. Men without corselets, men without helmets, men without shields gave way before them, urging them up to the forwardmost ranks, the ranks where the men with the best gear were concentrated. As Dimgalabzu had said, many of those who fought at the fore were smiths; Sharur saw friends and neighbors from the Street of Smiths.

Others in the first ranks—the armor over the softer body of the army as a whole—were prosperous merchants (also friends and sometimes rivals whom Sharur knew) and scribes. The scribes were not so prosperous, but were fitted out with armor at Kimash’s expense. Like the smiths, they were imbued with a certain resistance to Enimhursag’s might by the power inherent in their trade.

On came the Imhursagut, still shouting their god’s name. They, too, had wealthy men, armored men, in their front ranks. Enimhursag tramped among them, like a tower on parade. Off to either wing, archers in the donkey-drawn chariots exchanged arrows with one another and maneuvered to outflank the opposing army so they could disrupt it with their archery.

Enimhursag waved his sword and shouted abuse at the Giblut, as if he were a peasant woman in the market square spuming an offer for a bundle of radishes. “Have no fear, men of Gibil!” Kimash yelled in reply. His voice was small beside the gods, but large enough. “Do you see how his blade cannot go a digit’s length farther than his frontmost line of men? He has no power over us, save that which his warriors can give him. Let us beat those warriors. Let us drive them back over the canal, and their foolish, loudmouthed god with them. Forward the Giblut!”

“Forward the Giblut!” the men of Gibil cried, and stepped up the pace of their advance against the invaders.

Beside Sharur, Habbazu said, “You are all madmen, do you know that? When your line and the line of the Imhursagut collide, Enimhursag will be free to pick you like dates. The Imhursaggi god will be free to harvest you like barley.” He did not give way as he spoke, though, but kept trotting along with the rest of the Gibli army.

“We have fought wars against the Imhursagut before,” Sharur repeated. “We have won wars against the Imhursagut before. Remember that when our line and the line of the Imhursagut collide.”

Moments later, the two lines did collide. Sharur picked the Imhursaggi he would meet from among several on his front: a rawboned fellow with streaks of gray in his beard who bawled “Enimhursag!” like a lost calf bawling for its mother. He wore a helmet and corselet and carried a mace with a flanged bronze head.

“Forward the Giblut!” Sharur shouted again, and swung his sword at the Imhursaggi. The foe turned it on his shield, then brought down the mace like a smith bringing down his hammer. Had it struck Sharur, it would have dashed out his brains regardless of whether or not he wore a helm. It did not strike him, for he skipped to one side.

The momentum of the blow made his foe stagger slightly forward. Sharur dropped his own shield for a moment. He reached out, grabbed a bushy handful of the Imhursaggi’s grizzled beard, and yanked for all he was worth. The fellow cried out in pain and alarm. Sharur struck him in the side of the neck. Blood spurted. The Imhursaggi’s cries became bubbling, soggy shrieks. He toppled, clutching at himself.

When the two lines met, all semblance of order in either one disappeared. The warriors who could reach their enemies flailed away with whatever weapons they had. The peasant levies who made up the bulk of both armies emptied their quivers as fast as they could in the general direction of the foe.

Beside Sharur, someone yelled, “I see what you mean!” Sharur almost swung at the man before realizing it was Habbazu. The Zuabi thief pointed up and up, toward the enormous figure of Enimhursag. “What good does his huge whacking sword do him?”

“Not much,” Sharur answered. “He can mow down ten men at a stroke with it—but half of them, in this melee, will be his own men.”

“Ah,” Habbazu said. Then he added “God of my city, aid me!” because an arrow hissed past his face. And then, aplomb restored, he went on, “Yes, what good is he in this battle? Even if he stomps with his feet, he will trample his own men as well as the Giblut.”

“Even so,” Sharur answered, slashing at an Imhursaggi who stumbled back to escape the blade.

Despite Enimhursag’s raging, despite his shouted exhortations that filled the field with thunder, the Imhursagut fell back all along the line. The fury of the Gibhit matched theirs, while the men of Gibil had more corselets, more helmets, more bronze-faced shields, more bronze blades, more of the chariots that, though slow and awkward, were still faster and more maneuverable than men afoot, and allowed the Gibli archers in them to shoot at the Imhursagut from the flank.

“Forward the Giblut!” Kimash shouted, and the men of Gibil echoed the cry as they advanced: “Forward the Giblut!”

“We drive them!” Tupsharru yelled, his voice breaking in his excitement. “We drive them as a swineherd drives swine to the market.” He had a cut on his left cheek, from which blood ran down into his beard. Sharur did not think he knew he had been hurt.

But Enimhursag was not altogether powerless: far from it. Having come far out from under the shadow of their own god, having often defeated the Imhursagut and driven north the border between Gibil and Imhursag, the Giblut could hardly be blamed for reckoning the god of their rivals reduced to impotence.

Then Enimhursag stooped over the battlefield, seized a Gibli in his left hand—the hand not holding that immense sword—lifted him on high, and cast him down. The god bent again, grabbed another Gibli, and smashed him to the ground as well.

Seeing the god’s great hand descending to close on yet another man of his city, Sharur thought of his dream when he had gone up to Imhursag in the guise of a Zuabi merchant. There, too, something vast and terrible had reached down to pluck up tiny men and send them to their doom. Then Enimhursag had killed a true Zuabi merchant, not the false one he had, Sharur remained convinced, been seeking. Now—

Now, suddenly, Enimhursag let out a bellow of pain and rage; he rose without a Gibli clenched in his fist. Now his ichor dripped down onto the battlefield from a wounded forefinger. Another bellow rang out on the field, this one from Dimgalabzu the smith: “If your women haven’t taught you to keep your hands to yourself, you great overgrown gowk, let a man do the job!”

Enimhursag reached down again, and succeeded in killing another Gibli. The success gave him confidence. It gave him, perhaps, too much confidence, for his next try resulted in another wound, this one worse than that which Dimgalabzu had given him. A Gibli scribe’s voice rose in a triumphant cry.

The Imhursagut cried out, too, in dismay. “Our god is wounded,” moaned a man in front of Sharur. “Our god bleeds!”

“You will be wounded,” Sharur shouted at him. “You will bleed.” He flourished his sword and screwed his face up into a fierce and terrible grimace. When he took a step toward the Imhursaggi, the fellow spun on his heel and fled back through his own lines, throwing away his club to run the faster.

Sharur threw back his head and laughed. He was a young man at the forefront of a victorious army. When he had sneaked into Imhursag disguised as a Zuabi, he had been afraid. When he had gone openly into Imhursag to deceive the god, he had been afraid. He had been alone each time then. He was not alone now. He and his comrades, he and the men of his own city, were driving the enemy before them. No wonder, then, he laughed.

Also driving the enemy was one man not of his city. Grinning widely, Habbazu displayed a fine, heavy gold necklace. “So long as you took that from an Imhursaggi and did not steal it from a man of Gibil, enjoy it and profit from it,” Sharur said,

“A man who would steal from his friends is no gentleman,” the thief replied. “In this fight, the Giblut are my friends, for they help keep the Imhursagut from doing my body harm. I have this of an Imhursaggi, not from a Gibli.”

“It is good,” Sharur said. Along with the. nobles and smiths and scribes of Gibil, he pressed deeper into the wavering host of Imhursag, forcing the foe back in the direction of the canal that marked the border between Imhursaggi land and that of Gibil.

Then a shadow fell on his part of the battlefield. Involuntarily, Sharur looked up. The day, like most days in Kudurru from the beginning of spring to the end of autumn, had been bright and clear. For a cloud to pass in front of the sun was rare.

But no cloud had passed in front of the sun. Obscuring its light was the massive form of Enimhursag. Sharur stared up into the god’s enormous face. That proved a mistake.

Enimhursag’s eyes widened as he recognized the mortal who had led him and his city into this war.

“You liar!” Enimhursag shouted, his voice ringing in Sharur’s ears. “You cheat! You trickster! You Gibli!” To his mind, that seemed the crowning insult.

He intended more than insult. With his left hand, the hand unencumbered by the sword, he reached down for Sharur. No green and growing stalks of barley hid Sharur from the god’s search and anger now. If Enimhursag squeezed him in that man-sized fist, his blood would pour down onto the struggling Giblut and Imhursagut, as the luckless Zuabi merchant’s blood had poured out of him after Enimhursag seized him by mistake.

Unlike the luckless Zuabi, Sharur was not taken asleep and helpless on his mat. He had a sword in his hand and he had the determination to use it. He swung it at the enormous thumb that curled down to grasp him.

The blade bit deep. Sharur yanked it free and slashed again. Enimhursag would have been wiser to try to smash him flat than to seek to lay hold of him. But the god had proved imperfectly wise in other ways as well. Wounded a second time, he bellowed like a bullock at the instant in which it is made into a steer: a cry of commingled pain and astonishment that without words said, How could such a dreadful thing happen to me?

More great drops of ichor splashed the ground by Sharur. Enimhursag’s vital fluid did not have the harsh, metallic stink of human blood; it smelled more like the air just after lightning has struck close by—a smell that made the nose tingle on account of its power. If, after the battle was over, wizards could find the spots where the god had bled and dig up the ground into which his ichor had soaked, they might do great things with it.

That would be for later, though. For now, Sharur brandished his sword and shouted up to Enimhursag: “Go back to your own land. This land does not want you. Go back!”

All the Giblut took up the cry: “Go back! This land does not want you. Go back!”

Enimhursag howled in rage. He had expected the men of Gibil to welcome him as a liberator, to thank him for rescuing them from mad Engibil. But the Giblut not only did not welcome him, they not only did not thank him, they were handily defeating him and his people, and were defeating him by themselves, without even seeking the aid of their god.

Where that must have humiliated Enimhursag, it made Sharur proud. And yet, at the same time, it worried him. He had not wanted the Imhursagut to beat the men of his city. But he had wanted to draw Engibil’s notice to the northern border of the land Gibil ruled. If the god of Gibil needed to pay no attention to the invasion, he would not be distracted from affairs in and around his temple, and Habbazu would have a harder time stealing the Alashkurri cup.

Sharur fought on. So did his fellow Giblut. Step by step, they forced back the Imhursagut. Enimhursag managed to slay a few more men of Gibil, but was also wounded again and again. Whenever the god tried to attack a smith or a scribe or some other man intimately connected with the new in Gibil, he found good reason to regret it.

Sharur briefly wondered if smiths and scribes would also be able to resist the power of Engibil. Before that thought had the chance to do anything more than cross his mind, he forgot it, for Engibil appeared on the battlefield.

He did not manifest himself as taller than a building, in the fashion of Enimhursag. He was, in fact, hardly more than twice as tall as a man. But his voice, like Enimhursag’s, rang above and through the merely human din of the fighting. “Go home,” he called to his fellow god, as the Giblut had done. “You have no business here.”

“You are not a god, to give me orders,” Enimhursag shouted back. “You are not even a god to give your own people orders. If men will not heed you, why do you think I will heed you?”

“The men of Gibil are doing as they should,” Engibil said. “They are driving greedy invaders from their land. They are doing as I desire. If they can do it without unduly troubling me, so much the better.”

“You are mad,” Enimhursag said. “You let your men run wild. One day soon, they will run away with you.”

“It is not so,” Engibil said, though Sharur thought it might perhaps be so. “Kimash the lugal and I have an understanding.”

“Aye, no doubt,” Enimhursag said. “He does your job. While he does your job, you sleep. It is an understanding that requires no understanding: certainly it requires no understanding from you. This is as well, for you have no understanding to give.”

“Mock me. Scorn me. Insult me. Revile me,” Engibil said complacently. “Your city falters. My city thrives.”

“Truly you are asleep—or perhaps I am speaking with the ghost of Engibil, who died some time ago,” Enimhursag jeered. “Merchants from other cities of Kudurru shun Gibil. Merchants from lands beyond Kudurru shun Gibil. The gods from the land between the rivers shun Gibil and Engibil. The gods from lands beyond the land between the rivers shun Gibil and Engibil. And you say your city thrives!”

“My city thrives,” Engibil repeated. “I know things of which you know nothing, and I say my city thrives. The proof lies before you: my men, the men of Gibil, move forward, while your men, the men of Imhursag, move back. You have puffed yourself up big as a pig’s bladder blown up with air, but still my men wound you. See how you bleed.”

Enimhursag looked at his left hand, which Sharur and other Giblut had cut again and again. “Yes, still your men wound me,” the god said. “They wound me because they do not feel my power as they should. They have powers of their own, newfangled powers, godless powers, to set in the scales against my greatness, against my might, against my majesty.”

Engibil laughed in the face of his rival god. “How great is your greatness, how mighty is your might, how majestic is your majesty if men wound you?”

“Laugh all you please,” Enimhursag said. “Today, men of your city wound me. Tomorrow, beware lest they wound you.”

Engibil did not reply. He folded his arms across his chest. So far as Sharur could tell, he exerted no special strength against the strength of Enimhursag. If anyone answered the god of Imhursag, it was Kimash the lugal, who cried, “Forward the Giblut!”

“Forward the Giblut!” the men of Gibil echoed, and the battle, which had hung suspended while the gods bickered, picked up once more.

Sharur traded sword strokes with an Imhursaggi who, though larger than he, was not skilled with his weapon. Taking the foe’s measure, Sharur struck a clever blow. The sword flew from the Imhursaggi’s hand. Sharur brought back his own blade for the killing stroke.

“Mercy!” the Imhursaggi cried. “Spare me!” He sank to his knees and set the palm of his hand on Sharur’s thigh in a gesture of desperate supplication. “I am your slave!” Bending lower, he kissed Sharur’s foot through the straps of his sandal. “Mercy!”

“Get up,” said Sharur, who had no stomach for slaughter in such circumstances. “Go back through our line. Go back to our camp. Tell everyone as you go that you are the captive and slave of Sharur. If my people let you live long enough, I will give you over to Ushurikti the slave dealer, that I may profit from your price or ransom.”

“You are my master.” The Imhursaggi got to his feet. “I obey you as I would obey my god.”

No one would get a stronger promise from an Imhursaggi. If Sharur’s captive broke it... if he broke that promise, he would make a better Gibli than an Imhursaggi, anyhow. Sharur jerked his thumb to the rear. Still babbling praises and thanks, the man shambled away.

Habbazu said, “You might readily have slain him there. He is an enemy of your city. He is an enemy of your god. You would have gathered only praise.”

“This way, I shall gather profit instead,” Sharur said. “Profit also has its uses. And, this way, I shall be able to ask Kimash the lugal for leave to go back to Gibil after the fight here is done, so that I may give my captive over to Ushurikti for safekeeping and for sale.”

“You Giblut can be devious when you choose,” Habbazu remarked. “It is as well that your god smiles not on thieves; were it otherwise, the men of your city would make formidable rivals for us of Zuabu.”

“We judge man by man, not city by city,” Sharur said.

“That is because your god does not roll his own cylinder seal across your souls so strongly as do the gods of other cities,” Habbazu said. “This leaves you far more various from one man to another than are the men of Zuabu or Imhursag.”

“It could be so,” Sharur said.

“It is so.” The Zuabi thief spoke with assurance. “You live among the men of your own city. I see them as an outsider, and see with my own astonished eyes how various you Giblut are.” His eyes sparkled. “And now, another question: when you go back to Gibil to give your prisoner over to the slave dealer, may a certain retainer of such low estate he need not be mentioned to the godlike lugal accompany you?”

“What makes you think I know such a man?” Sharur inquired blandly. Habbazu glared at him, then started to laugh. Sharur went on, “Indeed, if I knew such a one, he might well accompany me when I go back to Gibil.”

“Perhaps you will soon make the acquaintance of such a one,” Habbazu said. At that moment, with Enimhursag bellowing to urge them on, the Imhursagut tried to rally. Habbazu said, “Perhaps we will both soon make the acquaintance of some large number of unfriendly men.”

The Imhursagut fought fiercely, but the men of Gibil had more armor, better weapons, and, despite Enimhursag’s exhortations, more confidence. The rally faltered. The Imhursagut began falling back once more.

Panting, Sharur was surprised to note how far the sun had sunk toward the western horizon. Panting hurt; he had taken a blow in the ribs from an Imhursaggi club. The blow had not been so strong as it might have, and had struck one of the bronze scales of his armor. Bruised he surely was, but he did not feel the grating or stabbing pains that would have warned of broken ribs.

Back and back the Imhursagut went, until they reached the tents of their encampment. They rallied once more in front of those tents, fighting now for the possessions they had brought into Gibil as well as for their god. With darkness looming, Kimash drew back from a final assault.

“He is wise,” Habbazu said. “If you make Enimhursag desperate, who can guess what he might do?”

“I would rather not find out,” Sharur said. “Kimash would rather not find out. It could even be that Engibil would rather not find out.”

“It could even be, indeed, that Engibil would rather not find out,” Habbazu said, nodding.

Leaving behind scouts to warn and companies of soldiers to resist for a time if the Imhursagut, contrary to expectation, tried to steal the war by night, Kimash led the bulk of his own host back to their camp. The wounded men among them groaned and cried; those who were unwounded sang songs of praise to their lugal, to their city, and, almost as an afterthought, to their god.

In the march back to the camp, Sharur found Tupsharru and Ereshguna. His brother bore no wound but the cut face Sharur had already seen; his father had bruised ribs almost identical to his own. “You should see what I did to the Imhursaggi, though,” Ereshguna boasted.

At the camp waited the Imhursaggi whom Sharur had captured. He threw himself down before Sharur, crying, “I am your slave!”

“Of course you are,” Sharur answered. “I am going to see if I can get leave from the lugal to take you back to the city and give you to the slave dealer there. I have no need for another slave of my own; the dealer will sell you or ransom you, and he and I will share the profit.”

“You may do with me as you please,” the Imhursaggi said. “You spared my life when you might have slain me. I am yours.”

Had capture ever been his fate, Sharur was certain he would have made a far more obstreperous prisoner than the abject Imhursaggi. But the Imhursaggi had been a slave before he was captured: a slave to his god. He was not getting a master for the first time, merely getting a new master. “Wait here,” Sharur told him. “I will return soon.”

He found Kimash the lugal surrounded by his guardsmen. The lugal raised in salute the cup he was holding. “Come, son of Ereshguna!” he called in expansive tones, waving for Sharur to approach. “Drink beer with me.”

Someone pressed a cup of beer into Sharur’s hand. He drank gladly; after a day of fighting in the hot sun, he was as dry as land to which no canal could bring water. “Mighty lugal,” he said when the cup was empty, “have I your leave to go back to Gibil come morning, to take a prisoner, a captive of my sword, to the house of Ushurikti the slave dealer for safekeeping?”

“This will be the second Imhursaggi you have brought to Ushurikti, not so?” Kimash said. Sharur nodded, wondering if the lugal was angry at him for having captured Nasibugashi in the process of starting a war with Imhursag. But Kimash went on, “Aye, take this one back, too. Sooner or later, all the Imhursagut will be Gibli slaves, and deserve to be.” As soon as his cup of beer was empty, he began another. He was not drunk yet, but soon would be.

Bowing his head, Sharur returned to his kinsfolk, his prisoner, and Habbazu. “Tomorrow we shall go down to Gibil,” he told the captive, “you and I and my comrade here.” He did not mention Habbazu’s name; what the Imhursaggi did not know, he could not tell. .

“It is good,” the captive said. “Because you are generous, I still live. I still eat bread. I still drink beer. What can a man owe another man that is larger than his life? I know of no such thing. There is no such thing.”

As a slave, he was liable to eat stale bread, and not much of it. As a slave, he was liable to drink sour beer, and muddy water dipped up from a canal as well. None of that seemed to bother him in the least. He had been a man of wealth in Imhursag, else he should not have held a bronze sword when he faced Sharur. Now, unless he was ransomed, he would be a man with nothing. Perhaps he failed to understand how far he had fallen. Sharur did not enlighten him; the more ignorant he was, the more tractable he would remain.

“If you and your comrade and your captive are not awake at earliest dawn, I shall rouse you,” Ereshguna said as Sharur stretched out a mat on which to sleep. Like Sharur, his father did not mention Habbazu’s name. A man could not be too careful. Word of the name might get back to Kimash. Or, for that matter, Engibil might be listening. Stretching, Sharur worried over that—but not for long.

When Sharur’s father shook him awake, he did not want to rise. He rubbed his eyes and yawned as he made himself get to his feet. “Is the captive still with us?” he asked, looking around in the gray dimness of early twilight.

“Sleeping like a child,” Ereshguna answered. “I have seen this in other Imhursagut, and in men from other cities where gods rule. They do not fret so much as we; their gods fret for them, as they do everything else for them. There are times when I almost envy them. Almost.”

Sharur saw Habbazu sipping a cup of beer. The Zuabi thief looked very alert, and very much as if he did all his own fretting. He nodded to Sharur.

Ereshguna said, “Yesterday evening, after you lay down and as I was about to do the same, men came here from the pavilion of Kimash the lugal. They asked if we had ever laid hands on the thief we sought.” He still named no names. Habbazu smirked. Ereshguna went on, “I told them no, and they went away. But it will be well when you and your comrade leave this camp, lest someone wonder if Habbazu the Zuabi thief and Burrapi the Zuabi mercenary are one and the same.”

“Yes.” Sharur stirred the sleeping Imhursaggi captive with his foot. The man looked confused for a moment, then recognized Sharur and recalled his circumstances. He scrambled to his feet and clasped his captor’s hand. Sharur gave him bread and beer for breakfast, then led him south, back toward Gibil.

Peasants by the side of the road, old men and striplings and women, called questions to the travelers as they tramped along. The peasants cheered to learn the Gibli army had beaten the Imhursagut in their first clash. The Imhursaggi captive was astonished. “Why has your god not told all the folk of Gibil of this victory?” he asked.

“Engibil doesn’t do things like that,” Sharur said. Whether Engibil could do things like that any more, he did not know. The god had not exerted himself so for generations. If he took back power in Gibil from the lugal, though, he would have to do such things. His laziness, which Sharur had seen, helped keep the people of Gibil free.

“How very strange,” the Imhursaggi said. Habbazu caught Sharur’s eye, but did not say anything.

“We like it this way,” Sharur said, answering what his captive had said and what Habbazu had not.

“How very strange,” the captive repeated. Habbazu started to laugh. Sharur gave him a dirty look. This time, though, he was the one who did not say anything.

When they got into Gibil, Ushurikti, who had not gone to war, bowed himself almost double before Sharur. “Ah, master merchant’s son,” the slave dealer said with a smirk, “are you going to bring me all of Imhursag to sell, one prisoner at a time?” He took a damp clay tablet out of a pot with a tight lid that kept its content from drying out and incised it with a stylus. Sharur, reading upside down, saw the dealer write his name as the owner of the slave. Then Ushurikti asked, “And what is the name of this Imhursaggi?”

“I never bothered to ask him.” Sharur turned to the captive. “What is your name, fellow?”

“I am called Duabzu, my master,” the Imhursaggi replied.

“Du-ab-zu.” Ushurikti wrote the syllables one by one. “Well, Duabzu, have you anyone in Imhursag who might ransom you? If your own people will pay a better price for you than I could get from a Gibli, you may go free.”

“It could be so.” Duabzu visibly brightened. “Perhaps, before long, I will again hear the voice of my god in my mind. Life would be sweet, were that to come to pass.”

“He is not a poor man,” Sharur said. “He swung a sword of bronze against me, till I struck it from his hand. No poor man would have swung a sword of bronze against me.”

“This is so. No poor man could have afforded to own a sword of bronze to swing against you,” Ushurikti said. “But whether this Duabzu has kin who would even want to pay ransom for him, that is a different question. When a man is captured, sometimes his kin prefer to reckon him as one dead, that they may make free with his inheritance.” The slave dealer had surely seen more of the unsavory side of life than had most men.

Duabzu looked horrified. “My kin would never be so wicked as that. If they can afford your price, they will pay your price. Enimhursag would turn his back on them forever if they were so wicked as to refuse.” He looked Sharur in the face. “In Imhursag, the god keeps men from being so wicked as that. I see the same is not true in Gibil.”

“In Imhursag, the god keeps men from being men,” Sharur answered. “Men are not all good, but neither are they all bad. Nor,” he added pointedly, “are gods all good, no matter what they impose on men.” Duabzu sniffed.

Ushurikti said, “You need not argue with this man, master merchant’s son. You need not argue with this slave, master merchant’s son.”

“I know that,” Sharur said. “I leave him in your hands. He invaded our land. He will pay the price. Someone, Gibli or Imhursaggi, will pay the price for him. You and I shall profit from that price.”

“It is good,” Ushurikti said. If Duabzu thought it was anything but good, he kept the thought to himself. Ushurikti led him away, back toward the little cubicle with the bar on the outside of the door where he would stay until sold or ransomed. Sharur wondered how close his cubicle would be to Nasibugashi’s, and how many other Imhursagut would take up temporary residence with Ushurikti and other Gibli slave dealers.

To Habbazu, Sharur said, “Come, let us go back to my own house. You will be my guest there. You will eat of my bread. You will drink of my beer. You will use my home as if it were your own.”

“You are generous, master merchant’s son,” Habbazu said, bowing. He answered ritual with ritual: “If ever you come to Zuabu, come to my own house. You will be my guest there. You will eat of my bread. You will drink of my beer. You will use my home as if it were your own.”

“If ever I come to Zuabu, I will do these things,” Sharur said. He wondered how welcome he would be in Zuabu, if ever Enzuabu learned Habbazu had given him the Alashkurri cup instead of taking it back to the god. But ritual was ritual. Sharur continued with what was not quite ritual, but was polite: “If you feel the urge, lie down with our Imhursaggi slave woman. If not eager, she is always obedient.”

“Perhaps presents would make her more eager, or at least make her seem more eager,” Habbazu said. “When a man lies down with, a woman for his own amusement or for pay, having her seem eager is as much as he can expect.”

“It could be so,” Sharur said.

At the house of Ereshguna, the slaves brought Habbazu bread and beer. They also brought him onions and salt fish and lettuce and beans, and did so without being asked. Sharur smiled at that, remembering how the Imhursaggi peasants had done for him exactly what Enimhursag ordered them to do for him, and no more than Enimhursag ordered them to do for him.

Habbazu eyed the Imhursaggi slave woman with frank speculation. She recognized that for what it was, and somehow, without smearing dust on herself or using any other trick, contrived to look even more mousy and nondescript than she usually did. Habbazu turned away, as if he had smelled salt fish that had not been salted enough and was going bad. When he turned away, the Imhursaggi slave walked straighten Sharur hid a smile.

Betsilim and Nanadirat stayed upstairs. For them to come down and greet a male guest who was not an intimate family friend, as Sharur and his father and brother were in the house of Dimgalabzu, would have been a startling breach of custom. Habbazu did not remark on their absence. He probably would have remarked had they made an appearance. .

When the slaves had left Habbazu and him to their food and drink, Sharur asked, “Will you go to the temple of Engibil tonight, to see if you can make off with the cup while Engibil’s eyes are turned to the north, to the fight with Enimhursag?”

“Master merchant’s son, that was my plan,” the Zuabi thief replied. “I think it best to do this as soon as may be.”

“You thieves like the darkness,” Sharur said. “It was in the darkness that you came to my caravan outside Zuabu.”

“It is so,” Habbazu agreed. “Darkness masks a thief. Darkness masks what a thief does.” He sighed, a sound of chagrin. “Darkness, that night, did not mask well enough what a thief did.”

Sharur’s grandfather’s ghost spoke in his ear: “Be wary of this man, lad. Be careful of him. He is a thief, and not to be trusted. He is a Zuabi, and doubly not to be trusted. Be wary, be careful, lest darkness hide what he does to you, not what he does for you.”

“I understand all that,” Sharur muttered impatiently, in the tones a living man used to address a ghost. Habbazu, realizing what he was doing, looked up to the ceiling and waited for him to be done. Sharur sighed, a sound of exasperation. His grandfather, querulous alive, was even more querulous as a ghost. Then Sharur brightened. He might yet make use of the suspicious ghost. “Ghost of my grandfather, will you go with the Zuabi thief into the temple of Engibil?” he asked, murmuring still, but not so softly as to keep Habbazu from hearing him. “Will you warn me if he tries to sneak off for his own purposes with what we seek?”

“No!” The ghost’s voice in his mind was indignant. “I shall do no such thing. I wanted nothing to do with this man from the beginning. I want nothing to do with him now. I want you to have nothing to do with him now.”

Sharur wanted to pitch the ghost through the nearest mud-brick wall. He knew that would not have hurt the immaterial spirit, but it would have made him feel better. Instead, he smiled broadly and said, “I thank you, ghost of my grandfather. That will help us. That will help us greatly.”

“I told you, I am not helping you,” his grandfather’s ghost shouted at him. “You young people pay no attention to your elders.” The ghost fell silent, and presumably departed in anger.

Habbazu, however, could not know that. Not having known Sharur’s grandfather as a living man, Habbazu could not hear him as a ghost. The thief could hear only Sharur. He said, “I would not have cheated you even without the ghost watching over me.”

“It could be so,” Sharur answered, nodding. “I think it is so. But, because I am not sure it is so, I shall do what I can to protect myself. Were I trading wares for you here, would you not like to make as certain as you could that I was not cheating you?”

“Well, so I would,” Habbazu said. “Very well; your grandfather’s ghost will have no cause to complain of me.”

“My grandfather’s ghost always has cause to complain,” Sharur answered, and Habbazu laughed, as if that were something other than simple truth.

“Most often,” Sharur said in a low voice as he and Habbazu stepped out onto the Street of Smiths, “I go out at night with slaves bearing torches to light my way.”

“Most often, when you go out at night, you want people to know you are going out at night,” the thief replied. “This is a different business. You want to be silent as a bat, stealthy as a wild cat, and quick as a cockroach that scuttles into its hole befgre a sandal crushes it.”

“And what you need fear now is not the sandal of a kitchen slave, but the sandal of Engibil,” Sharur said.

“I fear the sandal of Engibil not so much, for you did turn the god’s eyes to the north,” Habbazu said. “The way you turned the god’s eyes to the north ... no Zuabi would use such a way, but it worked. I fear the flapping sandals of Engibil’s priests. An old man who gets up to make water at the wrong time could undo me.”

“I thought you have ways to escape such mishaps,” Sharur said.

“I do,” Habbazu said. “And you, no doubt, have ways to keep from being cheated in your trading. But sometimes your ways fail. Sometimes my ways fail, as well. Did my ways not sometimes fail, your guards would not have caught me when I came to your caravan outside Zuabu.”

Sharur nodded. “I understand. Each trade has its own secrets. I hope, master thief, you will not need to use any of yours.”

“So do I,” Habbazu said. “I like easy work as well as the next man, as you must enjoy trading with fools for the sake of the profit it brings you. I wish I were robbing Enimhursag’s temple; with his eyes turned away from his city, his priests, those who have not gone to war, will surely be sluggish as drones. But you Giblut, you are alert all the time.”

“You speak in reproof,” Sharur said. “It is not a matter for reproof. It is a matter for pride. We do not need the god dinning in our ears to make us do what we should do. We are men, not children.”

“You are nuisances,” Habbazu said. “It is a matter of risk. I am not fond of risk when that risk is mine.”

“Ah,” Sharur said, and said no more. Up the Street of Smiths toward Engibil’s temple they strode. Near the end of the street, a large man stepped out of the deeper shadow of the house. He looked in the direction of Sharur and Habbazu for a moment, then drew back into the shadows. As Sharur walked on, he listened for the sound of rapid footsteps behind him.

“I am lucky you are with me,” Habbazu said. “Were I alone, that footpad might have set on me, for I am not large, and I look like easy meat.” Suddenly, even in darkness, the edge of a dagger glittered in his hand. “A serpent is not large, either, and looks like easy meat. But a serpent has fangs, and so have I.”

“I have seen your fangs,” Sharur said. “So have the Imhursagut.” He pointed ahead, and felt foolish a moment later: Engibil’s temple could not have been anything but what it was. “We draw near.”

“Yes.” Habbazu had not been making much noise. Now, abruptly, he made none at all. He might have been a ghost, walking along beside Sharur. Truly, a master thief had talents of his own.

Sharur looked up and up, toward the god’s chamber at the top of the temple. No light streamed out from its doors. Engibil was not in residence at the moment. Before Sharur could point that out to Habbazu, the thief waved him into a patch of deep shadow, nodded a farewell, and slid soundlessly toward the temple.

Torches burned outside the main entranceway. Guards paced outside the main entranceway. Sharur wondered how Habbazu could hope to get in unseen. But Habbazu, apparently, did not wonder.

No cries rose from the temple guards. Whatever Habbazu was doing, it seemed to work. Sharur stood in the deep shadow and waited. He had no idea how long the thief would need to enter the temple, to find the cup, and to escape. He was not altogether sure whether Habbazu could do that, or whether he would face the wrath of Engibil’s priesthood and perhaps of the god himself. Again, though, Habbazu would not have attempted the theft without confidence he would succeed.

As Sharur waited, he stared up at the heavens. Slowly, slowly, the stars moved over that blue-black dome. The star everyone in the land between the rivers knew as Engibil’s star was not in the sky. Sharur took that as a good omen: the god could not peer down from his heavenly observation platform and see Habbazu sneaking toward and into his temple.

Had the men who guarded that temple been caravan guards, they would from time to time have come out to check the shadowy places not far from the entrance to make sure no one skulked in them. They did not. They paced back and forth, back and forth. Perhaps they did not believe anyone would dare to try to sneak past them. Had Sharur been one of them, perhaps he would not have believed anyone would dare to try to sneak past, either.

He yawned. He was not used to being out by night, out in the darkness. The darkness was the time for men to sleep. The night was the time for men to lie quiet. It would not have taken much for Sharur to lie quiet against the wall. It would not have taken much for him to sleep.

He yawned again. The stars had wheeled some way through the sky. He glanced toward the east. No, no sign of morning twilight yet. He did not think he had been waiting long enough for the sky to begin to go gray, but he was starting to have trouble being sure.

Then, without warning, his grandfather’s ghost shouted in his ear: “Be ready, boy! The thief comes!”

“Has he got the cup?” Sharur whispered, excitement flooding through him and washing away drowsiness as the spring floods of the Yarmuk and the Diyala washed away the banks of canals.

“What? The cup?” his grandfather’s ghost repeated. “No, he hasn’t got the cursed cup. He is pursued, boy—pursued. He’ll be lucky to make it this far, is what he’ll be.”

“I did not think you wanted anything to do with him,” Sharur said. “I did not think you wanted to go with him into the temple.”

“I did not want anything to do with him,” the ghost answered. “I did not want to go with him into the temple. But you are flesh of my flesh: flesh of the flesh I once had. You were bound and determined to go through with this mad scheme. Since you were bound and determined to go through with his mad scheme, I had to help you as I could, even if I had said I would not.”

“For this I thank you, ghost of my grandfather,” Sharur said.

“Do not thank me yet,” the ghost said. “You are not safe yet. I have no flesh. I had no trouble leaving Engibil’s temple. The thief is a living man. He will not find it so easy.”

“What will they do to him if they catch him?” Sharur asked.

“Maybe they will simply kill him,” his grandfather’s ghost replied. “Maybe they will torture him and then kill him. Maybe they will torture him and then save him for Engibil’s justice, for whatever time in which Engibil decides to mete out his justice. Whatever they choose to do, the house of Ereshguna will fare better if they have not got this choice to make.”

“Ghost of my grandfather, you speak truly,” Sharur said with a shudder. What Engibil could wring out of Habbazu might well touch off a war between Gibil and Zuabu, and would surely bring ruin to the house of Ereshguna. The second possibility concerned Sharur far more than the first. He was a Gibli: his own came before his city, his city before his god.

He heard a thump, and then the sound of running feet— not headed in his direction. Cries came from the top of the temple wall: “There he goes! After him, you fools!” Some of the guards at the entranceway ran off in pursuit of those fleeing footsteps. One man fell down, his armor clattering about him. Another tripped over him in the darkness, producing fresh clatters and horrible curses. The rest of the temple guards pounded on.

“A good evening to you, master merchant’s son.” The whisper came from right at Sharur’s elbow. He whirled, and there beside him stood Habbazu.

“How did you come here?” Sharur demanded, barely remembering in his surprise to whisper also. “I heard you run off in that direction.” He pointed.

Habbazu’s laugh was all but silent. “You heard footsteps. Likewise, the priests and the guards heard footsteps. The footsteps you heard were not mine. Likewise, the footsteps the priests and the guards heard were not mine. Have you seen a mountebank, a ventriloquist, who can throw his voice so it seems to come from somewhere far from his mouth? The footsteps you heard—likewise, the footsteps the priests and the guards heard—seemed to come from somewhere far from my feet.”

“How do you do that?” Sharur asked.

“Master merchant’s son, this is not the time to linger and ponder such things,” Habbazu replied. “Neither is this the place to linger and ponder such things.”

“He is right. The thief is right,” Sharur’s grandfather’s ghost said.

Sharur knew Habbazu was right without having his grandfather’s ghost tell him. As quietly as he could, he withdrew from the place of shadow and stole back toward the Street of Smiths. Beside him, Habbazu was quieter still. Sharur was a quiet man; the Zuabi thief, again, might have been a ghost.

The ruffian who had thought of challenging Sharur and Habbazu as they went toward the temple did not come out when they retreated from it. Perhaps he had gone; perhaps he recognized them and concluded they were still a bad bargain. Either way, Sharur was as glad not to encounter him.

Once back safe in his father’s house, Sharur allowed himself the luxury of a long sigh of relief. Instead of waking the slaves—waking them and making them aware he had come in during the middle of the night—he fetched beer and cups with his own hands.

Only after he and Habbazu had drunk did he ask, “What went wrong in the temple of Engibil, master thief?”

Habbazu looked disgusted. “Exactly the sort of thing I feared; exactly the sort of thing a thief can do nothing to prevent. There I was, moving toward the storeroom wherein the Alashkurri cup is secreted. There I was, eluding all the guards, eluding all the snares.” He paused, then added, “Were the god paying close attention to his house, it would have been harder. It was not easy, even as things were.” He sighed.

“What went wrong, that a thief could do nothing to prevent?” Sharur asked again.

“A doddering old fool, with a white beard down to here”—Habbazu poked his own navel with a forefinger— “came tottering out of his cubicle, as I had feared one might, most likely because his bladder could not hold the beer he had drunk with his supper and he needed to ease himself.”

Sharur thought of Ilakabkabu, whom the description fit as a swordhilt fit a man’s hand. He said, “Many of the older priests are very pious men. Having one of them.see you would be the next thing to having the god see you.”

“So I found out.” Lamplight exaggerated the lines and shadows of Habbazu’s face, making it into a mask of woe. “This old, white-bearded fool, then, saw me, and his eyes went so wide, I thought they would bug out of his head. Would that they had bugged out of his head! Would that he had been stricken blind years ago! However doddering he is, he still has a fine screech, like that of an owl in a thorn- bush. Other priests started tumbling out of their cubicles, and they all started chasing me.”

“How could you escape them?” Sharur asked. “It is not your house. It is the house of Engibil. Yet you eluded the priests of the god in his house. Truly you must be a master thief.”

“Truly I am a master thief,” Habbazu agreed with just a hint of smugness. “Truly I am a master thief of Zuabu, sent forth to steal by Enzuabu himself. I have ways and means most thieves have not.”

Again, he did not describe what those ways and means were. Sharur’s trade had secrets of its own, too. He said, “I am glad these ways and means let you get free.”

“Master merchant’s son, believe me when I tell you that you are not half so glad as I am,” Habbazu answered. “I did not know if these ways and means would suffice, not until I left the temple itself and found you faithfully awaiting me.

“Would another attempt soon be worthwhile?” Sharur asked. “Or will the priests and guards in and around Engibil’s temple be too wary to do what you must do?”

“They will be wary,” Habbazu said. “They will surely be wary. But, if we are to do this thing, we had better do it soon. Before long, by what I saw, the army of Gibil will have beaten the army of Imhursag. Before long, by what I saw, Engibil will no longer need to watch out for Enimhursag. Then he will watch out for his temple, and theft will grow more difficult.”

“You said you could steal the cup even with the god at home in his temple,” Sharur reminded him.

“Yes, I said that. I still think it is true. I still think I could steal the cup with the god at home in his temple,” Habbazu said. “But, as I said just now, theft will grow more difficult with the god at home in his temple. And”—he hesitated, as if regretting the admission he was about to make—“I may have been wrong.”

“Ah,” Sharur said, and no more than ah. At least the thief could admit he might have been wrong. Many, perhaps even most, of the men Sharur knew would go ahead with a plan once made for no better reason than that they had made it. After a pause for thought, Sharur continued, “Then you are right. If we are to do this thing, we had better do it soon.”

“It will not be easy, with the priests alerted,” Habbazu said. “It will not be simple, with the guards on the lookout for a thief.”

“That is so.” Sharur sat in dejection, staring at the pot of beer. Then, little by little, he brightened. “It would not be easy, with the priests alerted,” he said. “It would not be simple, with the guards on the lookout for a thief. If they are all looking in a different direction, matters may be otherwise.”

“Indeed, master merchant’s son, you speak the truth there,” Habbazu said, nodding. “Any thief or mountebank soon learns as much. Distract a man, and you will have no trouble stealing from him. Distract him, and he is easy to fool.”

“Merchants learn as much, too,” Sharur said. “Who turned Engibil’s eyes from the temple to the border with Imhursag?” He waited for Habbazu to nod again, then went on, “We can turn the priests’ eyes from the temple, too.”

“Tomorrow?” Habbazu asked eagerly.

“That would be too soon, I think,” Sharur answered. “But the day after ...”

The square in front of Engibil’s temple was not nearly so fine and broad as the market square of Gibil. It was, though, large enough to hold a surprising number of entertainers of all sorts. Musicians played flutes and pipes and drums and horns, each ensemble’s tune clashing with those of its neighbors.

In front of one fluteplayer, a shapely woman wearing a linen shift so thin, she might as well have been naked, danced and swayed to the rhythm of his music. In front of another fluteplayer, a trained snake similarly danced and swayed. Sharur’s eyes kept sliding back and forth from the woman to the snake as he tried to decide which of them moved more sinuously. For the life of him, he could not make up his mind.

“Come one!” he called, a merchant out to make his sale. “Come all! Gibil wars against Imhursag, aye, but Gibil forgets not those who fight not. Here is an entertainment to lighten the hearts of those who wait within the city walls, to help them forget their worries.”

Boys paid with broken bits of copper shouted the same message—or as much of it as they could remember— through the streets of Gibil. Men who had not gone to fight the Imhursagut and women who could not go to fight the Imhursagut crowded into the open space in front of Engibil’s temple to leave their cares behind for a time.

Jugglers kept cups and dishes and knives and little statues spinning through the air. An enterprising and nimblefingered fellow used three cups and a chickpea to extract property from the spectators who tried to guess where it was hidden. He won so regularly, Sharur thought he had to be cheating. But Sharur could not see how he was doing it, and did not care to pay for instruction.

From the entranceway into Engibil’s temple, the guards stared out eagerly at the performers before them. Priests also watched from the top of the wall around the temple, and from the high stairways within. From the corner of his eye, Sharur watched them watching. He made sure he watched them watching only from the comer of his eye.

He knew Habbazu was somewhere nearby. He did not know where. He did not try to watch for the Zuabi thief at all. Habbazu knew his own business best. Sharur was trying to give him the best chance he could to conduct that business without the risk of being disturbed.

Presently, priests began coming out of the temple and into the square. Some of them clapped their hands to the music. Some watched the snake sway. Some watched the pretty girl sway. Some proceeded to prove they were no better than any other man at guessing under which cup the chickpea lay.

After a while, the priest named Burshagga strode up to Sharur. The two men bowed to each other. Burshagga said, “Do I understand rightly that we have you to thank for this entertainment spread out before us?”

Sharur did his best to look self-effacing. “I thought those left in the city could use a bit of joy while our army repels the Imhursagut. I fought in the first battle, and came back to Gibil to put a captive into the hands of Ushurikti the slave dealer. Soon I shall return to the fighting. In the meanwhile, why should we not be as merry as we can?”

“I see no reason why we should not be as merry as we can,” Burshagga replied. “As I said, we have you to thank for this entertainment spread out before us. No less than men of other trades, priests enjoy merriment.”

“This was my thought. This was why I decided to set the entertainment here,” said Sharur, who did indeed want the priests merry—and distracted. But then he pointed in the direction of the entranceway. “Not all your colleagues, I would say, hold the same view.”

There stood Ilakabkabu, his long beard fluttering in the breeze as he harangued several younger priests. “No good will come of this!” he thundered. “We do not serve the god for the sake of frivolity. We do not serve Engibil for the sake of merriment. We serve Engibil for the sake of holiness. We serve the god because he is our great and mighty master.”

Burshagga looked disgusted. “I will go and settle that interfering old fool.”

“I did not mean to cause such difficulties,” Sharur said. That was also true—he wanted all the priests distracted, and none of them preaching against distraction. He strolled along toward Ilakabkabu in Burshagga’s wake.

“Here, what are you doing?” Burshagga called to Ilakabkabu. “What foolish words fall from your lips now, old man?”

“I speak no foolishness,” the old priest answered. “I say that we should prove our devotion to Engibil with prayers and sacrifices, not with jugglers and fluteplayers and squirming wenches.” He gestured disparagingly toward the woman dancing in the thin shift.

“And I say Engibil does not begrqdge his priests their pleasures,” Burshagga said. “I am devoted to Engibil. No one can deny I am devoted to Engibil.”

“I deny it,” Ilakabkabu said. “You are devoted first to yourself, then to Kimash the lugal... lugal!” He laced the title with scorn. “And last of all, when you deign to recollect, to the god.”

“Liar!” Burshagga shouted. “Son of a whore! You think that because you have been a priest since before men learned to till the soil, Engibil speaks to you alone. You think that, because you have been a priest so long your private parts have withered, priests are not men like other men. Our god is not a god who hates pleasure. Does Engibil himself not couple with courtesans when the urge strikes him?”

“What the god does is his affair,” Ilakabkabu said stolidly. “He is the god; he may do as he pleases. But for you to do as you please... you are only a man, and a priest besides. Do not add your shame to the disgrace the temple suffered of having a thief penetrate it as deeply as Engibil penetrates one of those courtesans you talked about.”

Priests and folk of the city gathered round Burshagga and Ilakabkabu. Wrangling priests were entertainment, too. Sharur listened with intent interest on his face. He listened . with no trace of amusement or delight on his face. Ilakabkabu, no matter what he thought, was at the moment helping to do the work of distracting the temple for him.

Burshagga rolled his eyes. “I do not think you ever saw that thief. I think you were imagining him, as I know you are imagining that you alone can see into the mind of Engibil.”

“And I think that, because you young men were too slow and too stupid to catch the thief, you pretend he was never there,” Ilakabkabu retorted. “You put me in mind of a wild cat when a mouse escapes it. The cat sits down and licks its anus, pretending it did not truly want the mouse.”

“You are the one who knows everything there is to know about the licking of an anus!” Burshagga screeched. He grabbed a double handful of Ilakabkabu’s long white beard and yanked, hard.

The old priest screeched, too. He brought up a bony knee between Burshagga’s legs. Burshagga howled, but did not let go of Ilakabkabu’s beard. In an instant, the two priests were rolling on the ground, gouging and kicking and hitting at each other.

Most of the Giblut laughed and clapped and cheered them on. Some of their fellow priests, however, eventually pulled them apart. They kept right on calling each other names.

Most of the priests seemed to side with Burshagga, as did Sharur—but he knew that Ilakabkabu had been telling more of the truth here.

Where was Habbazu? Sharur could look around now, as if to see who was coming to find out if the brawl would start anew. He did not see the master thief. He had not seen the master thief since the day’s festivities began.

Where was Habbazu? Was he still waiting his chance? Was he skulking through the nearly deserted corridors of the temple toward the storeroom of which he knew? Was he sneaking out of the temple chamber with the nondescript Alashkurri cup in his hands?

Or had he already sneaked out of the temple with the Alashkurri cup in his hands? Was he even now leaving Gibil? Was he on his way back to Zuabu, on his way back to Enzuabu? How strongly did Enzuabu summon him? Where did he put his god? Where did he put his city? Where did he put himself?

Sharur knew what Habbazu had said. He also knew, better than most, that the truest test of what a man was lay in what he did, not in what he said. Sharur sighed. If Habbazu had deceived him... If Habbazu had deceived him, he would know before the sun set.

Burshagga and Ilakabkabu still shouted insults at each other. The insults Ilakabkabu shouted did nothing to keep more priests from coming out of the temple to enjoy the musicians and performers. As word of the unusual festivity spread through the city, those who sold food and beer also came into the open area in front of Engibil’s temple. Sharur bought a dozen roasted grasshoppers itnpa|ed on a wooden skewer and crunched them between his teeth, one after another, as he watched a dog walk on its hind legs atop a ball carved from palm wood.

At its master’s command, the dog climbed a stairway, jumped through a hoop, and did other clever tricks. Sharur applauded with the rest of the people gathered round it. It gave a canine bow, nose to the ground, forelegs outstretched in front of it. Then it ran over and stood, wagging its tail, beside the pot in which its owner was collecting his reward.

With a laugh, Sharur tossed a bit of copper into that pot. The dog bowed to him then. Its owner said, “Engibil’s blessings upon you, my master, for your generosity.” He bowed, too.

Sharur politely returned both the dog’s bow and the man’s, which made the people around him smile. Considering what Habbazu was doing or had done or would be doing, Sharur doubted that the dog trainer’s prayer for Engibil to bless him would be answered. He did not speak his doubts aloud. He did his best not even to think of them.

A priest came running out of the temple, shouting in alarm. Sharur’s heart leaped into his throat. Outwardly, he stayed calm. Nor did he show his relief when he heard what the priest was shouting: news that another priest of Burshagga’s opinion and one of Ilakabkabu’s were belaboring each other inside the sacred precinct.

“This is disgraceful!” Burshagga cried, rubbing at a scratch over one eye. “We embarrass ourselves before the people of the city.”

“As you said to Ilakabkabu, you priests are men like other men,” Sharur told him. “Other men will sometimes quarrel among themselves. The people of the city know that you priests will sometimes quarrel among yourselves.”

Burshagga bowed low to him. “I thank you for your understanding, master merchant’s son. I thank you for your patience. Would that all Giblut were as understanding and patient as you are. We should be a better people, were that so. As things are, most will use this as an excuse to laugh at the priesthood.”

“Priests are men like other men,” Sharur repeated. “Other men will be laughed at from time to time. So also will priests be laughed at from time to time.”

Now Burshagga did not bow. He did not look pleased. He looked sour as milk three days old. “When people laugh at us, it diminishes the power of the god we serve. When people laugh at us, it diminishes the power of the lugal who appointed us.”

He spoke of the god first now, and only afterwards of the lugal. But Sharur knew serving Kimash held a higher place in Burshagga’s mind than did serving Engibil. Sharur would not have minded seeing Engibil’s power diminished. On the contrary.

He also would not have minded seeing Habbazu. If he had embroiled Gibil and Imhursag in war, if he had managed this lavish distraction for the priesthood of Engibil— if he had done all that, only to have Habbazu flee with the cup to Zuabu and to Enzuabu, he would be embarrassed. He would deserve to be laughed at.

Burshagga sighed. “In the time of my sons, this will not matter. In the time of my grandsons, this will be a thing of the past. The old fools will be gone then, vanished from the priesthood. My sons and my grandsons will listen to my ghost haranguing them about the way things were when I walked the earth as a living man—they will listen, and they will laugh. And I, a ghost, shall laugh with them.”

“You say that now,” Sharur said. “You see that now. Will you say that when you are a ghost? Will you see that when you are a ghost? Or will you be angry when they laugh?”

“I am a man like other men,” the living Burshagga said, and laughed. “It is likely, then, that I shall be a ghost like other ghosts. It is likely that, like other ghosts, I will be angry at the vagaries of the living, and angry when they fail to hearken to me in every particular.”

Sharur laughed, too. “You are not altogether a man like other men, Burshagga. You are more honest than most. You see more clearly than most. You see farther than most.”

“I see a master merchant’s son who is flattering me,” Burshagga said. “But I also try to see what is. and what will be, not what I wish were so.”

“Here,” Sharur said, and waved to one of the beersellers. Buying a cup, Sharur handed it to Burshagga. “You see a master merchant’s son who is buying for you a cup of beer.”

“I see a master merchant’s son who shows a proper and pious respect for the priesthood.” A twinkle in his eye, Burshagga drank the cup dry. “Ahh! It is good.”

“Which is good?” Sharur asked. “The beer, or that a master merchant’s son shows a proper and pious respect for the priesthood?”

“Both those things are good,” Burshagga answered. He nodded to the beerseller. “Here, son of Ereshguna, I will buy you a cup of this beer, that you may learn for yourself whether it is good.” And he did.

Sharur drank. As Burshagga had said, the beer was good. He and the priest exchanged bows and compliments. Burshagga went off to see if he could figure out under which cup the fellow with the nimble fingers had concealed the chickpea. Smiling, Sharur saw that the fellow with the cups and the chickpea had concealed one thing from Burshagga: that the game was unlikely to be as straightforward as it seemed.

With a shrug, Sharur bought another cup of beer for himself. If Burshagga did not know the fellow with the chickpea could make it appear wherever it would give him the greatest profit, Sharur did not intend to enlighten him. Every craft had its own secrets. The priest would learn these secrets from experience, and would pay for the privilege of learning.

Ilakabkabu came out of the temple once more, and began fervently preaching against the frivolous entertainment. He drew a considerable crowd. People clapped and cheered as he flayed them for their light-mindedness. Thus inspired, he preached more ferociously than ever. He did not notice he, too, had become part of the entertainment.

Burshagga gave up trying to find the furtive flying chickpea after several moderately expensive lessons. He came over and watched Ilakabkabu instead. He said not a word, but his mere presence inspired the pious old priest to new and rancorous heights of rhetoric.

“He talks like a man on fire,” someone beside Sharur remarked. Sharur turned, and there stood Habbazu.

After staring, Sharur asked in a quiet voice, “Have you got it?”

The master thief looked offended that Sharur should doubt him. “Yes,” he answered. “Of course I have it.”