Between the Rivers

5

Sharur tugged at the donkey’s lead rope. “Demons eat you!” he shouted in the best Zuabi accent he could assume. “Devils flay the hide off your bones! There lies the city, just ahead. If you want to rest, you can rest inside it.”

The donkey brayed and looked stubborn and set its feet and would not go forward. A man with a couple of pots full of grain strapped to his back strode around Sharur as he went back to the animal and got it moving with a direct brutality of which Harharu would have disapproved. The others on the road to Imhursag—the road the donkey was doing its best to block—did not complain; on the contrary.

“You stupid thing,” Sharur said, as the donkey resentfully started going once more. “You stupid, ugly thing. Under the shadow of the walls, you want to stop. I tell you, it shall not be.” The donkey brayed, but kept walking.

In Sharur’s view, the walls of Imhursag were not nearly so fine as those of his own city. They were not so high as Gibil’s walls, nor did they compass round so broad an area. Much of the brickwork was old, and in imperfect repair. But that only made the temple of Enimhursag, thrusting step by narrowing step into the sky above the top of the wall, seem more massive and imposing by comparison. This was the god’s city first, with men and their needs an afterthought.

Guards at the gate looked Sharur and the donkey over without much interest. “Where from?” one of them asked.

“Zuabu,” he answered, and pointed southwest.

“What’s the beast carrying?” the guard inquired.

Was Enimhursag looking out through the bored man’s eyes? Was the god of Imhursag speaking through the bored man’s lips? Sharur did not think so, but knowing was hard. Still, having succeeded with the lie—no, the half-truth, for the guard had not asked his home city—about his origin, he had not intended to speak anything but the truth here: “Bronze and bracelets and beads and pickled palm hearts.”

“Where’d you come by all that stuff?” the Imhursaggi asked. He and his companions chuckled at that. The Imhursagut were men like any others... when Enimhursag let them be so.

As if his dignity had been affronted, Sharur drew himself up straight. “I traded for it—of course.”

The guards laughed out loud. “Of course, Zuabi,” their leader said. They didn’t believe him. None of Zuabu’s neighbors believed Zuabut when they proclaimed their honesty. The guard went on, “Just remember, friend, your lightfingered god won’t protect you if you step out of line here. Enimhursag, the great lord, the mighty lord, loves thieves not.”

His voice grew deeper, more rolling, more imposing when he mentioned his god—or was it the god delivering a warning through him? “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sharur said in tones too arch to be taken seriously. Laughing once more, the guards waved him into Imhursag.

As he passed through the gateway into the city rival to his own, Sharur felt, or thought he felt, a tingle run through him. The hair on his arms and chest stood out from his body for a moment, as if lightning had struck not too far away. Then the feeling faded, and he might have been in any city of Kudurru.

Most of the Imhursagut, to look at them, were not much different from other folk of the land between the rivers. Peasants gaped at the number and size of the buildings Imhursag held. Potters shouted their wares. Customers shouted derision at them. A drunken woman slept in the shade of a mud-brick wall. Her tunic had hiked up to show her secret place. A small boy pointed and giggled. A dog lapped up what was left of the beer in the pot beside her, then lifted its leg against the wall. The small boy giggled louder.

Here and there, though, Enimhursag’s priests—the god’s eyes, the god’s spies—strode through the streets. They shaved their heads. They shaved their beards. Sharur wondered if they ever blinked. He didn’t think so. Whenever he saw one of them, he kept his own eyes cast down to the dirt of the street so as to draw no notice. He did his best not to imagine what would happen if Enimhursag realized a Gibli had sneaked into his city.

A gang of slaves was knocking down a mud-brick building. Only a single overseer watched them, and was paying more attention to a harlot sauntering along the street than to the workmen. Nonetheless, they labored steadily and diligently. In Gibil, a gang supervised with such laxness would have accomplished nothing.

One of the slaves, seeing the overseer’s eyes following the rolling buttocks of the harlot, did lean on his copper-shod digging stick for a breather. After a moment, though, the slave stiffened and began breaking up mud brick once more. “I pray your pardon, mighty lord,” he muttered as he worked. ‘‘I am but a lazy dung fly, unworthy of your notice. I am but a lowly worm, not deserving of your attention.” How the chunks flew from the brick!

Sharur shivered. No wonder the overseer could turn his gaze toward a whore’s backside rather than keeping it firmly fixed on the work gang. Enimhursag watched the slaves, and held them to their tasks more thoroughly than the man might have done with lash and shouted curses. Sharur wondered if Enimhursag was keeping special watch on this gang because the building that would replace the one they were demolishing was to serve his cult, or whether the god simply surveyed all the slaves in his city.

The less Sharur spoke, the less chance he had of betraying himself to the people or to their vigilant god. He had hoped to be able to find the market square without talking to any of the Imhursagut. But the streets of Imhursag were like those of Gibil. They were like those of any other city in the land between the rivers. They bent and twisted back on themselves in ways no one who had not lived in Imhursag since birth—or no one whom Enimhursag did not guide— could hope to understand.

After passing the gang of sweating slaves and their inattentive human overseer for the second time, Sharer realized he might wander till nightfall without stumbling upon what he sought. No help for it, then, but to ask an Imhursaggi. He put the question to a graybeard carrying a large bundle of palm fronds.

“Not from here, eh?” the old man said. “No, I can tell you ain't, I can. You talk funny, you do. Well, from here you go...” His voice trailed away. Was he reviewing the plan of the city he carried in his mind? Or was he asking Enimhursag for the answer—and receiving it? Sharur did not inquire. Sharur would sooner not have known. The old man resumed: “Second left, third right, first left, and you're there.”

“Second left, third right, first left,” Sharur repeated. “I thank you. May your god bless you for your kindness.”

“Oh, he does, lad, he does.” The old Imhursaggi’s smile was broad and happy. He liked living in a city where the god ruled directly; Sharur did not understand, but he did not argue, either. Thanking the man again, he led the donkey down the street.

The directions, whatever their source, were good. Imhursag's market square proved neither so large nor so noisy as that of Gibil. No, after a moment Sharur revised that first impression: Imhursag's market square might be small, but at the moment it was a great deal noisier than that of Gibil. Merchants from all over Kudurru and the surrounding lands thronged here, where the Giblut traded among themselves and large stretches of the square of Gibil wore nothing but bare dirt and blowing dust. Seeing Imhursagut profit while his own people had to do without infuriated Sharer.

He found a tiny open area in the square of Imhursag, tethered the donkey to a stake driven into the ground not far away, and set out his own trade goods on cloths. That done, he began loudly crying their virtues.

Imhursagut and merchants from other cities and other lands wandered through the market square. Sharur quickly sold several pots of pickled palm hearts to an Imhursaggi tavern keeper. The man said, “Come to my place—I am Elulu—on the Street of Enimhursag’s Elbow, just past the bend. My wife cooks palm hearts in many tasty ways.”

“If I can come, I will come,” Sharur said, bowing. The lie was as smooth as he could make it; he had no intention of going into a street named for any part of Imhursag’s city god.

A couple of women traded him broken bits of bronze and copper for his beads. So did a couple of men, buying for their womenfolk. In such small dealings, the Imhursagut seemed little different from the people of Gibil. Without the eyes of the god on them, they were indeed simply people. They were also rather simple people; Sharur got more for the ornaments from them, and with less haggling, than he would have from Giblut.

Then one of the shaven-headed priests stopped in front of him. The man picked up a knife. He handled it like one knowledgeable of weapons. “This is fine metalwork,” he observed.

“I thank you, sir, that I do.” Sharur laid on the Zuabi accent like a peasant spreading manure thickly over his field.

“I would not have thought Zuabu could claim such skilled smiths.” The priest’s eyes moved back and forth, back and forth, from the blade he held in his hand to Sharur. Enimhursag was staring out of those eyes, too. “Tell me, if you will, whence came this blade. Tell me, if you know, where it was made.”

“He who traded it to me said it came from Aggasher,” Sharur answered. Not only was Aggasher farther from Imhursag than Zuabu, and so less likely to be intimately familiar to Enimhursag and his minion, it was also ruled by its goddess, and so more likely to be pleasing to the god and his priest.

“Aggasher, eh?” The priest felt of the knife. “Well, it could be. Metalworking makes the touch of a god hard to detect. Were it less useful, it would be banned. Perhaps, one day, it shall be banned anyway.” Was that Enimhursag, thinking aloud through the priest’s lips? Not all the sweat running down Sharur’s back sprang from the heat of the day. But then the priest went on, “I have need of a good blade, Zuabi. How much will you try to steal from me for it?”

Against him, Sharur did not bargain so hard as he might have. He did not care to risk drawing Enimhursag’s attention to himself. Even so, he would have been pleased in Gibil with the weight of silver he got for the dagger.

A man with a pot of beer strode through the market square, selling cups of his brew for bits of metal. Sharur gladly drank one. He did not think the beer was as good as they brewed in Gibil. He did not think anything in Imhursag was as good as its Gibli counterpart.

Not long after he gave the clay cup back to the beerseller so the man could refill it for his next customer, a couple of foreigners walked past his little display: Alashkurrut sweltering in their tunics. One of them was colored like a man of Kudurru; the other had lighter, ruddier skin and hair of a woody brown rather than the usual black.

“Good-looking blades there,” the fair one said to the other in their own language. Sharur stood still as a stone and looked stupid, not wanting them to know he understood. The man from the western mountains went on, “They might almost be Gibli work.”

His companion snorted. “Not in this city, Piluliumas,” he said. “This city is Gibil’s foe. No Giblut come here.”

“Piluliumas, I know Gibli blades when I see them,” Luwiyas said stubbornly. He turned to Sharur and spoke in the language of the land between the rivers: “You, trader. Where do these knives come from? What city do these swords call home?”

Bowing, Sharur answered, “I got these blades, knives and swords, in Zuabu. The man who traded them to me said they were made in Aggasher.” Having told that story to the priest, he had to stick by it. Enimhursag might be listening.

“There, you see?” Piluliumas said. “Aggasher, not Gibil.”

But Luwiyas said, “In Zuabu, they will sell you your own head and make a profit on it. In Zuabu, they will sell you someone else’s head and say it is your own and make you believe it. If the god of Zuabu were not a god of thieves himself, his people would steal the jewels from his earrings.” .

Sharur had to work hard to keep his face straight and pretend he did not follow the Alashkurri. Luwiyas’s opinion of Zuabut was identical to his own; the man must have had dealings with them. His friend said, “It could be so, I suppose. They do look like good blades. Shall we see what he wants for them?”

“Not now,” Luwiyas answered. “We have asked about them, so he will seek too much for them. Let us come back tomorrow, as if by chance, and trade as if we do not care. He is no master merchant, or he would have more goods. He will be glad enough to trade with us then.”

His companion bowed. “You are wise. It is good.”

Sharur thought Luwiyas was good, too, his one mistake being the assumption that a chance-met merchant in the market square would not speak his language. The two Alashkurrut went off to disparage someone else’s goods. Sharur had already intended to stay overnight in Imhursag; indeed, to stay in the city whose god hated him until he found answers to the questions Kimash had set him. Now he dared hope he might gain some of those answers sooner than he had expected.

As far as Sharur was concerned, the inn he chose for the night would have been reckoned poor in Alashkurru, a disgrace in Gibil. It was dark and dirty. The food ranged from bad to worse. The room to which the innkeeper showed him was so tiny and smelly and full of bugs, he carried his sacks of trade goods out to the stables and bedded down in the straw beside his donkey.

When the innkeeper refused to give back any part of what he’d paid, he shouted at the man. “You gave me copper for a night’s food,” the Imhursaggi said. “You gave me copper for a night’s lodging. You have had food here. You have lodging here. Shall we go to the god? Shall we let Enimhursag decide?”

“No,” Sharur said quickly. The innkeeper smirked, thinking that meant Sharur admitted justice lay with him. In fact, Sharur admitted nothing of the sort, but let himself be cheated to keep the god’s eye from falling on him.

And, as he drifted toward sleep, he decided that perhaps he was not being cheated after all. He was, in fact, more comfortable than he would have been in that nasty little cubicle. He looked over toward the donkey. Though still without any great love for the stubborn beast, he said, “You are better company than that jackass of an innkeeper.”

The donkey snorted. Sharur rolled over and fell asleep.

Some time later, his eyes came open, or, at least, he saw once more. Was he awake? Did he dream? He did not know. He could not tell. Normally, that alone would have told him he was dreaming. Everything he saw, though, everything he heard and felt and smelled, seemed too vivid, too real, for a dream. Everything seemed too coherent for a dream, too.

But neither was he in the world to which he usually awoke. He watched and marveled. Presently, he grew afraid.

He was moving through a green, growing field of barley. The stalks of grain, though, towered over his head as if they were the oaks and ashes and elms and other trees with peculiar names that grew in the mountain valleys of Alashkurru. Had he grown tiny, or had the barley become huge? He could not tell. He knew only that he had to keep walking through it, for he was going toward ... going toward ... He could not remember what he was going toward, only that getting there was important.

Then he did remember something else. Something—he could not remember what—would try to stop him. Something, if it got the chance, would do worse than try to stop him.

No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than something—the something he did not know—stirred the tops of the barley stalks, shoving them aside so that the sun stabbed down into the green-tinged twilight through which he moved. He scurried away from that light, for he did not want it to pin him to the ground. Whatever was up there would find him then.

Glistening with sweat in the sunlight, a hand and arm groped toward him. Each finger on that hand was longer than he was; he could have stood and danced on that immense palm. But if those fingers and that palm closed on him, he did not think he would dance. He did not think he would dance ever again.

He realized then, as he had not realized before, that he was not the only manikin moving through the field of barley. Others also scurried along beneath the growing grain. That enormous hand closed around one of them and lifted him up toward the light. A thin wail of terror rose, and then cut off abruptly. Sharur dove into a hollow in the ground. A cockroach already sheltered there. It was not much smaller than he; for a moment, he thought it would fight him to hold its hiding place. But then it fled, hairy legs flailing.

That immense hand descended once more. Blood now stained palm and fingers. A drop fell on Sharur as the hand passed over him. It went after the cockroach, whose motion must have drawn attention away from his hiding place. Looking up through the shifting barley stalks, he saw an intent, serious face as big as the world. He shut his eyes as tight as he could, not so much to keep the eyes in that face from seeing him as to keep himself from seeing them.

The hand groped after the cockroach. When it rose, though, it was empty; the scuttling bug had escaped. A great bellow of rage filled the sky, as if a thunderstorm cried out with the voice of a man.

Sharur woke in the stable to the sound of his donkey— indeed, all the donkeys in their narrow stalls—braying frantically. His chest was wet. Some of the straw around him was wet. His first thought was that the donkey, in its fright, had kicked over or broken the pot of water the stablehands had left for it.

But that was not so; the light from a guttering torch outside the stall showed him the bowl where it belonged. It also showed him the liquid that splashed him was dark, not clear. A hot, metallic smell rose from it.

“Blood!” he exclaimed, recognition and horror mingling in his voice. He snatched up unstained straw from the floor, dipped it into the donkey’s water pot, and washed himself as clean as he could.

While scrubbing at himself, he remembered the barley field. What had been hunting him through it, and what had that great hand caught instead of him? That it had wanted him he had no doubt.

Slowly, the donkeys calmed. As their racket subsided, Sharur heard more racket—the racket of men, outside the stable. He ran out into the night to find out what was going on.

“Lord Enimhursag!” people were shouting, and “The god!” and “The power of the god!” and “Who was the evil-doer the god chose to punish?”

People were running from the inn as Sharur came out of the stables. Some of them had the same sorts of questions as did he. Others knew more, or said they did. “Squashed him flat!” one of them shouted. “Squashed him flat as a cockroach!” (Sharur shuddered.)

“He must have had it coming,” someone else said—the innkeeper. He was carrying a torch. In its light, his eyes were wide and glittering. Catching sight of Sharur, he said, “You’re a lucky bugger, Zuabi, and you had better believe it.”

“Why?” Sharur asked. “What happened?”

“When that room didn’t suit you—and curse me if I know why it didn’t—I put another traveler from your city into it,” the man answered. “The god only knows what crimes he’d committed—and the god made him pay for them.”

“Reached right through the roof and squashed him flat!” that first fellow repeated, in a voice suggesting he’d had enough beer and then some the night before.

“Enimhursag knows a man’s heart. Enimhursag sees a man’s soul,” the innkeeper said. “The god of our city is a just god. The god of our city is a righteous god. The god of our city is a mighty god.”

The god of your city is a stupid god, Sharur thought. The god of your city is a clumsy god. Enimhursag had discovered that one man in Imhursag claiming to be a Zuabi was not what he seemed. (That was anything but stupid, a point on which Sharur ehose not to dwell.) The god had tracked the false Zuabi to a particular inn. (That was anything but clumsy, another point Sharur would sooner have forgotten.) At the inn, though, Enimhursag had slain the wrong Zuabi, choosing the true instead of the false. (He might well have slain the right one, a point about which Sharur refused to think in any way whatever.)

“Was he kin of yours, this other fellow from your city?” the innkeeper asked.

Sharur thought for a moment before he answered. If he said yes, the innkeeper might let him look at or even take the effects of the other Zuabi, the true Zuabi, and who could guess what he might learn from them? But, on the other hand, if he said yes, he might draw Enimhursag’s notice back to himself where the god now, believed his troubles with Zuabut were over. That last consideration decided Sharur. “No,” he said.

“An honest Zuabi,” the innkeeper said. “Isn’t that funny? Next thing you know, we’ll be seeing a pious Gibli.” He laughed loudly at his own wit. Sharur thought he heard other laughter, deeper laughter, echoing through and around that of the innkeeper. He told himself he was imagining that other laughter, and wished he could have made himself believe it.

“If the excitement’s over, I’m going back to bed,” he said, and forced out a yawn. He was not sleepy anymore; the yawn was as artificial as any of the expressions he wore while haggling over the price of a spearhead. Like those artificial expressions, this one served its purpose.

Before he lay down again, he shifted the straw in the donkey’s stall to make sure he did not lie on any that was bloodstained. After he lay down, he sent a prayer in the direction of Enzuabu, apologizing that the god’s subject had been taken in his place. And after that, to his surprise, he slept.

When he woke the next morning, he saw he had not done such a good job of cleaning himself as he had thought. But what had escaped his eye in the night had also escaped the eyes of the innkeeper and the guests who had spilled out of the inn after Enimhursag visited it in his wrath. He did better before letting anyone see him by light of day.

The barley porridge the innkeeper gave him for breakfast was bland and watery. He gulped it down anyhow, and then loaded trade goods onto his donkey and hurried out to the market square.

Arriving not long after sunrise, he found a better place than that from which he had done business the day before. He set out knives and swords and pickled palm hearts and started crying for customers. Before long, as if by chance, the Alashkurrut with whom he’d talked the day before came by. It wasn’t chance, either on their part or on his: one of the reasons he reckoned the spot where he’d set up better than that which he’d had the day before was that it lay close to the display the men from the mountains had made for their own goods.

Bowing to them, Sharur said, “The gods give you a good day, my masters. How may I serve you?”

“Perhaps, since we are here, we will look further at these blades of yours,” Piluliumas said, picking up one and hefting it. “I suppose I can say they are not the worst blades I have seen in the land between the rivers.”

“You are generous to a small merchant.” Shariir bowed again.

Piluliumas’s companion plucked at the sleeve of his tunic. He spoke in the language of the Alashkurru Mountains: “I still say these blades look like Gibli work. What will our gods do to us if we bring back blades from Gibil?”

“You worry too much, Luwiyas. Metal’s home is hard to tell,” Piluliumas answered in the same tongue. “Besides, he said they were from Aggasher.” The trader from the mountains shifted to the language of Kudurru: “You there, Zuabi—you said these swords were from Aggasher, not from Gibil?”

“Yes, I said that,” Sharur agreed. “I said it because it is so.”

Piluliumas looked happy. Luwiyas did not. “Will you swear in Enzuabu’s name that this is so?”

“In Enzuabu’s name I swear it,” Sharur said at once. Enzuabu was not his god. His only hesitation over the false oath was some small concern that Enzuabu might catch and punish him when he went back onto Zuabi territory. But, for one thing, Enzuabu would not hear an oath made in Imhursag, and, for another, Sharur, having escaped Enimhursag’s wrathful search in the night, thought he could escape Enzuabu, too.

Now Luwiyas bowed to him. “It is good. You have done us a favor. We will bargain with you for these blades.” Piluliumas nodded.

Sharur held up a hand. “A favor for a favor. Is this not right? Is this not just?” When the Alashkurrut looked alarmed, he smiled reassuringly. “Nothing great, my masters. You asked a question of me. I would ask a question of you. Is this not right? Is this not just?”

“Ah. A question for a question.” Piluliumas relaxed. “Yes, this is right. Yes, this is just. Ask your question, Zuabi.”

“I shall ask.” Sharur looked sly, as a Zuabi would in seeking information about a rival city. “Tell me, men of Alashkurru, why have your gods so harshly turned against the Giblut? Why do you need to be so sure that nothing you buy, nothing you trade for, comes from Gibil? I have seen this with other men from the mountains as well as with yourselves, my masters, but have never found the chance to ask about it till now.”

Luwiyas dropped back into his own tongue: “How much may we tell him?”

“We must tell him,” Piluliumas answered in the same language. “A favor for a favor, a question for a question.”

“Let the small gods speak, if they will.” Luwiyas still sounded worried. “They will know what may be said. They will know what must not be said.”

“They will know you are a man who runs from a lizard sitting on a rock,” Piluliumas said tartly. “But still, let it be as you say.” He returned to the language of Kudurru: “Trader from Zuabu, come see what we have brought to the land between the rivers. Trader from Zuabu, come hear the small gods we have brought from the mountains of Alashkurru. A favor for a favor, a question for a question: the small gods will answer you.”

“I will come,” Sharur said, hiding his worry. If the small gods the Alashkurrut had brought from the mountains recognized him as a man of Gibil, they would not tell him anything, or else they would tell him lies. If they, recognized him as a Gibli, they might do him far more harm than that.

Playing his role as a Zuabi to the hilt, he fussily packed up his own goods, muttering about thieves all the while. Luwiyas said, “Few steal in the market square of Imhursag. Few risk the anger of Enimhursag.”

“I am of Zuabu,” Sharur said. “I take nothing for granted.” The more he said he was from Zuabu, the more he made himself act like a Zuabi.

He convinced the two Alashkurrut. Laughing, Piluliumas spoke in the language of the mountains: “Zuabut will steal anywhere. They think their god protects all thefts. They may even be right.”

“He will not steal from us,” Luwiyas said, and set his hand on the hilt of his knife.

Sharur looked from one of them to the other, his face set in lines of blank incomprehension. Only when Luwiyas gestured for him to follow did he lead his complaining donkey after the two Alashkurrut. The men from the mountains had come down to Kudurru with guards and donkey handlers, as caravans from the land between the rivers went up to Alashkurru. .

The guards looked bored, as Sharur’s guards had looked bored up in the mountains. They were rolling dice in the dust of the market square, and tossing trinkets back and forth as they won or lost. They looked up at Sharur, decided he was harmless, and went back to their game.

“Here,” Piluliumas said. “We have brought Kessis and Mitas with us from their home; we have brought them with us from our home. They are small gods of Alashkurru; they are small gods of our land. They will pay a favor for a favor; they will answer a question for a question.”

One of the idols was carved from bone, in the shape of a dog. The other was carved out of a black, shiny stone, and looked something like a wild cat, something like a woman. Piluliumas and Luwiyas spoke together in their own tongue: “Small gods of the mountains, gods who watch your folk far from home, here is a man of Zuabu, a wise man, a worthy man, who would receive a favor for a favor, who would ask a question for a question asked of him.”

“I am Kessis. He may speak.” The bone lips of the dogshaped idol moved. The voice was rough and growly. As was the way with gods, Sharur understood even though the words were strange.

“I am Mitas. He may speak.” The half-cat, half-woman of stone had a voice of such allure, a fancy courtesan would surely have craved it.

“I thank you, small gods. I thank you, foreign gods. I am a man of the land of Kudurru. I am a man of the city of Zuabu,” Sharur said. Kessis and Mitas were only small gods. They were only, foreign gods. They would not know the difference between one city and another in the land between the rivers. Sharur very much hoped they would not know the difference between one city and another in the land between the rivers. He went on, “Here is my question, small gods, foreign gods. I have heard that the gods of Alashkurru have grown angry at the men of Gibil, the men of the city east of mine, and—”

“It is true,” Kessis interrupted.

“Oh, yes, it is true,” Mitas agreed. Her stone lips skinned back from teeth like needles.

Sharur bowed. “Thank you, small gods. Thank you, foreign gods. Can you tell me why it is true? Knowing this, we of Zuabu will gain great advantage over the Giblut.” Had he truly been a Zuabi, that would have been so. What theft could be greater than a theft of knowledge?

Kessis’s bone eyes rolled in their sockets. “He does not know,” the small god growled in astonishment.

“No, he does not know.” Mitas sounded far more desirable, but no less surprised.

“Shall we tell him?” Kessis asked: “Should we tell him? Will we anger the great gods if we tell him?” The dogshaped idol shivered. “I fear the anger of the great gods.”

“He is not a man of Gibil,” Mitas said soothingly. “He is a man of Zuabu.” Sharur stood very still, not wanting the small gods to think of questioning that.

“Maybe he will tell what he learns to the Giblut,” Kessis said worriedly.

Both small gods turned their eyes toward Sharur. He had to speak. He knew he had to speak. When he spoke, he spoke without hesitation: “By all the gods of Kudurru, I swear I shall not tell what you tell me to any man not of my city.” An oath to all the gods of the land between the rivers, unlike one to Enzuabu, would bind him. But he had managed to frame it in such a way as to make it serve his needs and deceive the small gods of Alashkurru.

“It is good,” Mitas purred. Sharur’s blood heated when he listened to her.

“Yes, it is very good,” Kessis agreed.

He still hesitated, despite that agreement. Mitas spoke to Sharur: “Man of Zuabu, you know the Giblut do not give any gods, not their god, not your gods, nor yet the gods of Alashkurru, the honor they deserve.”

“I have heard this, yes,” Sharur said.

“This is one reason the gods are unloving in return,” Mitas said, “but it is only one. You know the Giblut, when they trade in Alashkurru, trade not only for copper ore but also for other things—strange things, rare things, beautiful things, to take back to their city.”

“I have also heard this is so, yes.” Sharur nodded.

Kessis growled again: “One thing they took, they never should have taken. One thing a wanax or a merchant traded, he never should have traded. One thing that went to Gibil, it never should have gone to Gibil.”

“What thing is this?” Sharur asked.

“It is a thing of the gods of Alashkurru,” Kessis answered.

“It is a thing of the great gods of Alashkurru,” Mitas added. Resentment flavored that wonderful voice. Mitas went on, “I am a small god because the great gods do not let me grow great. I am good enough for travelers to take with me on a journey. I am not good enough, I am not strong enough, to do more.”

“You speak truth.” Kessis still sounded and looked worried. “It is the same with me. But because we are not strong, because we are not great, we need to remember the great gods.”

“Why? They barely remember us.” Mitas showed those needle-sharp teeth again.

“What sort of thing went from Alashkurru to Gibil?” Sharur asked once more. “Why are the great gods of Alashkurru angry that it went from the mountains to the land between the rivers?”

“It is a thing of the great gods of Alashkurru,” Mitas repeated, while Kessis let out growls that were close to frightened whimpers. “It is a thing into which the great gods of Alashkurru poured much of their power, to keep it safe.”

Mitas’s laugh was throaty and scornful, the laugh of a rich, beautiful woman rejecting the advances of a clod. “They poured in their power, to keep it safe, and now the thing is lost. And the thing can be unmade, the thing can be broken. The power can be spilled, the power can be lost, like beer soaking into the floor when a pot is dropped.”

“Is it so?” Sharur said softly. “In the name of... Enzuabu, is it so?”

“It is so,” Kessis answered. “Is it any wonder the great gods of Alashkurru hate and fear the Giblut? Is it any wonder they want no more Giblut coming to the land of Alashkurru?”

“What manner of thing is it that the great gods used to store their power?” Sharur asked. “Whence came it?”

“We know not,” Kessis growled.

“It is a secret thing,” Mitas added. She loosed that scornful laugh once more. “It is such a secret thing, even the man who kept it knew not what he kept; he was ignorant of the treasure he held. And so it went to Gibil, traded for a knife of bronze or a pot of wine or some other trifle, when it was worth as much as any three cities in the land between the rivers. And so the great gods are in a swivet; and so the mighty gods tremble. And so”—she laughed yet again— “it serves them right.”

Sharur bowed low. “You have given me much to think on, Mitas and Kessis. You have given the folk of my city much to think on, small gods of Alashkurru.”

“Small gods chafe under the rule of great gods hardly less than men do,” Mitas said. Kessis’s low snarl might have been agreement. It might as easily have been a warning to Mitas to watch her tongue.

Piluliumas said, “Zuabi, I will go back with you to the space you left in the market square. You have been here some little while. You have lost custom. I will go back with you and help you set out your goods once more.”

“Man of Alashkurru, you are generous.” Sharur bowed again. “I gladly accept your help.” He took hold of the donkey’s lead rope. “Let us go.”

As they walked back toward the patch of dirt Sharur had vacated, Piluliumas said, “Zuabi, I will tell you a story. Hear me out before you speak. Think three times before you answer. Is it agreed?”

“Let it be as you say.” Sharur nodded to Piluliumas. “I listen.”

“Good,” the Alashkurri said. “Let us suppose that a man from the mountains came down to this hot, flat land to trade. Let us suppose that, in a town square, he met a man who said he was from Zuabu, but who might have been from a different city, a city whose name I shall not speak. Do you understand so far?”

“I will hear you out before I speak,” Sharur replied. “I will think three times before I answer.” Piluliumas knew him for what he was, or thought he did. Sharur had no intention of confirming his suspicions.

Piluliumas seemed unoffended. “Good,” he repeated. “Let us suppose that he had knowledge the man who said he was from Zuabu might find useful, but knowledge he could not pass to a man who was from a different city, a city whose name I shall not speak. He would ask no questions himself. He would seek to gain no knowledge himself. He would not make of himself a proved liar before the small gods of Alashkurru. He would not make of himself a proved liar before the great gods of Alashkurru. He would say, and say truthfully, ‘The man said he was from Zuabu. I knew no differently. In the names of the small gods I swear it. In the names of the great gods I swear it.’ Do you understand, man of Zuabu?”

“I think I do,” Sharur answered. He kicked at the dirt. A puff of dust flew up. “May I ask a question of my own?”

“You may ask,” Piluliumas said. “Because I am an ignorant man, I may not answer.”

“Here is my question,” Sharur said: “Why would a man from the mountains of Alashkurru care to help a man who said he was from Zuabu, but who might have come from a different city, a city whose name I shall not speak? There are some cities in the land between the rivers whose people the great gods of Alashkurru hate.”

“There are some cities in the land between the rivers whose people the great gods of Alashkurru hate, true,” Piluliumas agreed. “There is a city whose people they hate, at any rate. But the men of that city have traded in the mountains and valleys of Alashkurru for years. They have traded in the mountains and valleys of Alashkurru for generations. They have traded bronze, they have traded wine, and, sometimes not even knowing it, they have traded their words. Some of us have listened to those words and found them harder and sharper than bronze, sweeter and more splendid than wine. Do you understand, man of Zuabu?”

“Piluliumas, I understand,” Sharur answered. And understand he did. Huzziyas the wanax had wanted to escape the power of the great gods of Alashkurru, but had been unable. Because he was a wanax, they watched him closely, watched him and controlled him. Others, perhaps, they did not watch so closely. Piluliumas—and how many more like him?—had to some degree broken free of their gods, as the men of Gibil had done. Yes, the gods of Alashkurru had reason to fear the Giblut. They had, in fact, more reason to fear the Giblut than Sharur had imagined.

Piluliumas said, “I have told you a story, a story to make the time pass by. It could be nothing more. See what a lucky man you are, that no one has taken your trading space while you visited ours?”

“I am a lucky man, Piluliumas,” Sharur said. “I am a very lucky man.”

“We are lucky men, Sharur,” Ereshguna said. “We are very lucky men.”

“That we are,” Tupsharru agreed, beaming at his older brother. “Not only did you thrust your head into the lion’s mouth by going up to Imhursag, not only did you find out what Kimash the lugal and the rest of us in Gibil desperately needed to know, but you also came home with a profit.”

“If I can't make a profit trading against Imhursagut and foreigners, I am not a master merchant’s son,” Sharur said, and Ereshguna smiled at him. “The tale about being from Zuabu served me well. Zuabut are likely to have any sort of goods to trade, and no one asks many questions about how the goods came into their hands.”

Ereshguna ran a hand through his beard. “These small gods of Alashkurru did not say what sort of thing had been carried down from the mountains here to Gibil?”

“No, Father, they did not. If they spoke truly, they knew not.” Sharur paused to dip up a fresh cup of beer from the pot the Imhursaggi slave woman had brought at Ereshguna’s order. After sipping, he went on, “I believe they did speak truly. They reckoned me a Zuabi who would use what they said against Gibil, not a Gibli who would use it for his own city.”

“And yet that one Alashkurri knew you for what you were.” Ereshguna stroked his beard once more. “Once men see other men free, they want to become free themselves. This is so in Alashkurru. This is so in cities of Kudurru ruled by ensis; I know as much for a fact. It could be so even in cities of Kudurru ruled by gods.”

“It must be so,” Sharur said. “Gods once ruled all cities. Even the rule of ensis gives men more freedom—or lets men take more freedom—than the rule of gods.” He hunched his shoulders, remembering the voice of Engibil forbidding him to borrow from his father to pay Ningal’s bride-price.

“Whatever this thing is, it must be a thing that came to Gibil in one of last year’s caravans from Alashkurru,” Ereshguna said, returning to the business at hand. “Last year, the gods of Alashkurru were friendly to us; not so this year. Likely, I would say, this thing came to Gibil in a caravan of the house of Ereshguna. We deal more with the Alash- kumit than any other merchant house of Gibil.”

“Likely I brought this thing to Gibil myself,” Sharur said. “But how do we go about finding out what it is? I will guess it is not an ingot of copper. I will guess it is not a sack of copper ore. These things would be changed and broken in the use of them. By what the small gods said, the power of the great gods is not lost from the thing in which they hid it, and the thing is not broken; they fear lest the thing be broken, and the power lost.”

Tupsharru said, “If it is not copper, if it is not copper ore, it is likely to be a strange thing, a curious thing, a beautiful thing. If it is a strange thing, a curious thing, a beautiful thing, it may be anywhere in the city, for many Giblut prize these things and pay us well for them. But likeliest of all—”

“—Likeliest of all,” Sharur finished for him, “likeliest of all is that it lies on the altar of Engibil, or stored away in the god’s temple, for Kimash the mighty lugal delights in giving Engibil such gifts.”

“This is good,” Ereshguna said. “This is very good indeed. If such a thing lies on the altar of Engibil, surely the god will know it for what it is. If such a thing is stored away in the god’s temple, surely he will point it out to us.”

“If we return it to the gods of Alashkurru, they will no longer have reason to hate us,” Tupsharru said. “Our caravans will be able to go into the mountains. They will come home with copper and copper ore. The city will profit. The house of Ereshguna will profit.”

“I will profit,” Sharur said dreamily. “With my profit, I will pay Ningal’s bride-price to Dimgalabzu the smith and fulfill my oath to Engibil.”

“Let us go to the temple and seek this thing,” Ereshguna said. “If we find it, Kimash the lugal will reward us for saving the city from its sorrow.”

They drained their cups of beer. They set them down. They got to their feet. It was then that Sharur had a new thought, a different thought. “If we find this thing in the temple of Engibil, if we find it there and we break it...” His father and his brother stared at him as he finished the thought: “If we find it and we break it, we punish the gods of Alashkurru for slighting us.”

“What good would that do?” Tupsharru exclaimed in horror. “It would only make them hate us more.”

Ereshguna said nothing. “You see, don’t you, Father?” Sharur asked. Slowly, unwillingly, Ereshguna nodded. By Tupsharru’s wide eyes, he still did not follow. Sharur explained: “Into this thing, for safekeeping, the great gods of the Alashkurrut have poured much of their power. If we break the thing, we break the power and set the Alashkurrut free of their great gods.”

“Only in Gibil, and only in your generation, my son, would such a thought come into the mind of a man.” Ereshguna sounded awed and terrified at the same time. “I think Tupsharru has the better course. The Alashkurrut are only Alashkurrut. Who cares whether their gods rule them or not? If we find the thing, those gods are welcome to it. They will reward us for it, as your brother says, and Kimash the lugal will reward us for it as well.”

“It may be so,” Sharur said. “But if an Alashkurri like Piluliumas can free himself, if an Alashkurri like Huzziyas can tremble on the edge of freeing himself, how many in the mountains would be free if the great gods there were weakened?”

“Where is the profit in it?” his father asked.

“I care only so much for profit,” Sharur answered. Now his father gaped at him, as if he had said Engibil did not exist or uttered some other manifest absurdity. He went on, “I care also about revenge. The gods of the Alashkurrut have wronged me. Let them pay.”

“Aye, let them pay,” Ereshguna said. “Let them pay compensation for the wrong.”

“Let them pay pain for the wrong, as I have done,” Sharur said. But now he wavered. Even a killer’s family could avoid blood feud by payments to the victim’s kin. He scowled. He kicked at the dirt floor. “Perhaps.” His tone was grudging.

Tupsharru said, “We are pricing the lamb not born. We are pricing the sword not sharpened. We have not found this thing, whatever it may be. We do not know if we shall find this thing, whatever it may be.”

“True!” Ereshguna seized on that with transparent eagerness. “We do not know enough to have any certain plans yet. Let us go to the temple and see what we may learn. Let us go to the temple and see what Engibil may teach us.”

“Yes, let us go,” Sharur said, and left his home with his father and his brother. The way the god had refused to release him from his oath and let him borrow from his father to pay bride-price to Dimgalabzu let him less eager than he might have been to approach Engibil’s house upon earth, but it needed doing, and he did not shrink from that which needed doing. Perhaps, as Tupsharru had said, finding the thing into which the Alashkurri gods had poured their power would let him make a profitable journey after all. And perhaps, as he had said himself, finding the thing would let him take revenge on the gods.

Either way, he thought. Either way.

Engibil’s temple was larger than the palace of Kimash the lugal. The chamber at the top of the temple where the god dwelt, toward which the massive structure tapered in a series of steps, was the highest point in Gibil. From it, Engibil could look out across the whole city and across all the farmlands it ruled.

Bigger than the palace the temple might have been. It was not more splendid. For one thing, much of it was old. Because it was built of baked bricks rather than sun-dried mud brick—nothing but the best for Engibil—that was not so obvious as it might have been otherwise. The temple was not crumbling to pieces. But the brickwork had a faded, sun- blasted look that said it had been standing for a long time. No additions were going up, as they constantly were at the lugal’s palace.

Hangings of rich wool dyed crimson and the savor of burnt offerings went some way toward concealing the aging bones beneath, as paint would on a woman. And, as a woman heavy with paint might be a long time realizing she was no longer beautiful, so Engibil, lulled by Kimash’s splendid presents and those of the previous lugals, had not yet noticed he was less supreme in his city than had once been so.

Some of his priests understood that far more completely than he. The younger men in the priesthood were Kimash’s creatures, more dedicated to lulling the god than to exalting him. The older servitors still revered him as they and then- predecessors had done back in the days when he ruled Gibil through an ensi, but year by year death cut through their ranks, as the scythe cut through rows of barley at harvest time.

A younger priest, his head shaved like those of the priests of Enimhursag but his eyes clever and altogether his own, came up to the merchants in an outer courtyard. Bowing, he said, “I greet you in the name of Engibil, Ereshguna. In the name of Engibil I greet you, sons of Ereshguna. May the god’s blessings be upon you all.”

“I greet you in the name of Engibil, Burshagga,” Ereshguna said, and bowed in turn.

“In the name of Engibil we greet you, Burshagga,” Sharur and Tupsharru said together. They also bowed.

“How good when men are gracious,” Burshagga said. “How pleasant when men are polite. How may this servant of Engibil also serve you?”

Ereshguna pointed to that topmost chamber. “If he be not otherwise engaged, we would speak with the god. If he be not otherwise busy, we would have words with him.”

The priest frowned. Plainly, he had not expected that. “On what matter would you speak with the lord of the city?”

“On the matter that concerns Kimash the lugal,” Ereshguna answered, his voice as soft as lambswool.

Burshagga’s eyes widened. Now his bow was not the polite bow of greeting but the deeper bending that acknowledged authority. “Master merchant, if you are concerned with that matter... Wait one moment, please.” He hurried away.

An old priest cocked his head to one side and examined Sharur and Tupsharru and Ereshguna. His beard was not gray but snowy white. Surely he remembered the days before Igigi had taken the rule of Gibil out of Engibil’s hands and into his own. And, by the way he scowled at the three merchants, the men of the new, he remembered those days fondly, too.

Burshagga came back at a brisk walk. “The god is pleasuring himself,” he reported. “That being completed, you may attend him. His eye fell on the white-bearded priest. “Have you nothing better to do than stand and stare, Ilakabkabu? Why don’t you take yourself off to the boneyard and save us the trouble?”

“Because I am truly a man of Engibil,” Ilakabkabu said. “I remember the god first, not a mere man who will be dead and stinking soon enough, soon enough.” He drew himself up with a pride at the same time stubborn and impotent.

“I am a priest of the great god Engibil, as you are,” Burshagga retorted. “I worship the great god Engibil, as you do. But I am not wedded to the past, as you are. I do not pant for the past as for a virgin bride, as you do. Go off to the boneyard, old fool; may your forgotten ghost go straight to the underworld.”

“Engibil will temember my ghost,” Ilakabkabu said. “Engibil will cherish it.” He walked off at a stiff-jointed shuffle.

“Old fool,” Burshagga repeated, this time to Ereshguna and his sons. “He would take us back to the days before lugals, to the days before metal, to the days before writing, if he had his way.”

“Many things pull in that direction these days,” Sharur said. Burshagga nodded indignantly. He had his own kind of righteousness, different from Ilakabkabu’s.

“His years, if not his thoughts, may deserve respect,” Ereshguna said mildly.

“Bah!” Burshagga said. But, before the priest could begin an argument, one of his colleagues came trotting up and pointed toward the uppermost chamber in the temple. Seeing the gesture, Burshagga grew businesslike once more. “Engibil will grant you audience now. This is, I remind you, on the matter that concerns Kimash the lugal, Kimash the mighty lugal.”

He had his own way of getting the last word. As he turned to lead the merchants up to the god’s audience chamber, Sharur studied him. Burshagga, too, was a man of the new. The old had been disagreeable and tyrannical. Burshagga looked to be proof that the new could also be disagreeable and tyrannical. Sharur shrugged. Even the gods had their weaknesses, their failings.

“Ascend Engibil’s stairway!” the priest said. The stairway was one of four, one for each of the cardinal directions, that went up to the chamber of the god. It had one step for every day of the year. Despite being a man of the new, Sharur felt no small awe as he set his foot upon it. He had never gone up to an audience with Engibil before. Engibil had come to him—he remembered with a shiver the god’s voice beating through him on the Street of Smiths—but he had never gone to the god, not like this.

Someone was coming down the long stairway as Sharur and Tupsharru and Ereshguna climbed it. A woman, Sharur saw; she was wearing tunic rather than kilt. As she drew closer, he recognized her: the beautiful courtesan who had stripped herself naked in the street for him and his caravan crew to admire when he came back to Gibil from the mountains.

He laughed under his breath. His brother looked a question at him, but he did not explain. He would not say what was in his thoughts, not here, not in the house of the god. Kimash the lugal had said he had ways of pleasing Engibil even without strange things, rare things, beautiful things from the land of the Alashkurrut. Remembering the lush ripeness of the courtesan’s body, Sharur was certain she would have pleased him. No doubt she pleased the god, too.

And, as he drew closer still, he saw the god had also pleased her. She walked with slightly unsteady step, as if she were on the edge of being drunk. Her smiling lips were swollen, bruised; but for the smile, all the muscles of her face had gone slack with pleasure. She stared through Sharur and Tupsharru and Ereshguna, the pupils of her eyes enormous as a wild cat’s at midnight.

After she swayed past Tupsharru, he laughed softly, too. “She was not a duckling, but she quacked like one,” he murmured—a proverb about the sounds a truly kindled woman made in her ecstasy. Sharur nodded.

By the time he reached the top of the stairway, sweat bathed him. A fat old priest who had to make that climb was liable to fall over dead. Sharur glanced toward his father. Ereshguna was neither fat nor very old, but he lived his life in the city these days instead of leading caravans to distant lands. He was panting, but otherwise seemed all right. Sharur was panting a little himself. He nodded to his father. Ereshguna nodded back.

The god’s chamber was a cube of baked brick with a narrow walkway around it. A door led into it from each of the cardinal directions. It should have been dimmer in there than outside; the chamber had no windows. But light streamed out from the doors: the light of the god. Sharur shivered again.

Enter. The word resounded inside Sharur’s head, and, no doubt, inside Tupsharru’s and Ereshguna’s as well. It was as loud as the god’s voice had been in the Street of Smiths, but not so terrifying. For one thing, here it was expected, as it had not been there. For another, here Engibil was inviting, not forbidding. .

Sharur stood aside so his father and brother could precede him into the god’s chamber. His heart beating fast, he followed them.

Engibil sat on a gold-sheathed chair like that of Kimash the lugal (after a moment, Sharur realized he had that backwards; surely the lugal’s throne was copied from this one). The god was naked, perhaps because he had just had the courtesan, perhaps for no other reason than that it pleased him to be so. He had the form of a well-made man of about Ereshguna’s age, but with all human imperfections removed. Sharur got only a quick glimpse before he, like Ereshguna and Tupsharru, threw himself flat on the floor in front of the god.

Rise. Again, the word filled the minds of the mortals who had come before Engibil. Rise, Ereshguna. Rise, Sharur and Tupsharru, the sons of Ereshguna. As the three men got to their feet, the god went on, now moving his lips as if he were a man, “Seek not to beseech me to give back your oath, Sharur son of Ereshguna. Seek not to buy your bride with profit that never was.”

“Great god, mighty god, god who founded this city, god who made this town,” Sharur said through lips numb with fear, “that is not my purpose. That is not why I have come before you. Examine my spirit, great god. Look into my soul, mighty god. You will see I speak the truth. You will see I dare not lie before you.”

Engibil looked at him. Engibil looked into him, as if looking into his mind was as easy as looking into his body. For the god, it was. Sharur felt penetrated, as he had penetrated the Imhursaggi slave woman. Engibil could have learned much Sharur would not have had him know. But he was searching only for the one thing and, when he found it, he withdrew.

“I see you speak the truth,” he said. “I see you dare not lie to me. Speak, then, of the reason you have come before me. Speak, then, of your purpose. Or shall I examine your spirit once more? Shall I look into your soul again?”

“God who founded this city, I will speak,” Sharur said hastily. “God who made this town, I will answer.” Anything to keep the god from going through his mind as he went through clay tablets with writing on them.

“Say on, then.” Engibil folded chiseled arms across massive chest.

Sharur took a deep breath. “Great god, you will know that my caravan brought no copper home from the Alashkurru Mountains. Mighty god, you will know I brought no copper ore to Gibil from the land of the Alashkurrut. Great god, mighty god, you will know the Alashkurrut would trade me no strange things, no rare things, no beautiful things to lay before you for your pleasure, to set on your altar for your delight.”

“Yes, I know this,” Engibil replied. “It does not please me. The copper is of but small concern. The copper ore is of no great moment. That I fail to get my due angers me.” His brows came down like thunder.

Sharur’s eyes flicked to one side, toward his father. Ereshguna’s face was blank, as it would have been in a dicker with another merchant. Sharur did his best to keep his own features similarly impassive. Behind that mask, anger sparked. The god cared nothing for what made Gibil the city thrive. The god cared only for what pleased him. No wonder Kimash had sent him the courtesan.

“Lord Engibil, I believe I know why the Alashkurrut would not treat with us,” Sharur said. “I believe I know why the gods of the Alashkurrut would not let them treat with us.”

“You will tell me how this came to pass. You will tell me why this is so.”

“Great god, I will.” And Sharur related what he had learned from Kessis and Mitas. He finished, “Mighty god, if this thing lies before you, we can give it back. Lord Engibil, if this thing is set on your altar, we can return it.” He did not—he made sure he did not—think about destroying it.

Engibil’s perfect features took on a look of puzzlement. “I recall no such object coming before me.”

“Great god, are you sure?” Sharur blurted. “Mighty god, are you certain?” Only when he saw his father and brother staring at him in alarm did he realize that his words, if Engibil chose to construe them so, might be blasphemous. Who save a blasphemer could doubt anything a god said?

Engibil, fortunately, proved more interested in the riddle than in the possible affront. “I noted no great power trapped in any of the objects I received over this past year. I noted no great power trapped in any of the objects given to men of this city, and thus only indirectly to me, over the past year.”

“Would you have noticed it, had you not been specially seeking it?” Sharur asked, affecting not to hear the god’s casual assumption of ownership over everything and everyone in Gibil. “The man who traded it had no notion of what he was sending out of the mountains.”

“A man!” Engibil’s words dripped scorn. “What does a man know? What can a man know? A man beside a god is a mosquito, trying to suck the blood of time.”

“But this is not a thing of men,” Sharur reminded the god. What Engibil said was true, but, with writing, men gained memory as secure and long-lasting as that of the gods. Again, Sharur did not speak of that. Instead, he continued, “This is a thing of gods. Could the gods of the mountains not have concealed their power within it, hiding that power from both men and gods?”

Engibil frowned, not a frown of anger, but one showing Sharur had thought of something that had not crossed his mind. Engibil was immensely strong. Engibil knew a great deal. All the same, a truly blasphemous thought flicked into Sharur’s mind—and then out again, as fast as he could send it away: the god was not very bright.

“I suppose it could be so,” Engibil said. “I did not closely examine my gifts to see if they might have this power embedded in them. Why would I do such a thing, when I saw no need? Now I see a need. Now I will closely examine my gifts. You will come with me, even if you are only men. Come.”

He rose from his throne and set one hand on Sharur’s shoulder, one hand on Tupsharru’s, and one hand on Eresh- guna’s. He was a god: if he needed an extra hand, he had one. Against Sharur’s bare skin, the flesh of his hand did not feel like flesh, but like warm metal. Engibil’s eyes blazed. As if Sharur had looked into the sun, for a moment he could see nothing but the light that poured out from them.

When his vision cleared, he found that his father and his brother and Engibil and he were no longer in the audience chamber at the top of the temple, but in a storeroom like the storerooms that made up so much of Kimash’s palace. They proved not to be alone in the storeroom. A priest and a courtesan—not nearly so fine a courtesan as had ministered to Engibil’s pleasure—had been about to lie down together. They both squeaked in astonished dismay.

Laughter rolled from Engibil in great waves. “Elsewhere!” he boomed. “Elsewhere, elsewhere.” The priest and the courtesan fled. Sharur would have fled, too. The storeroom had a higher ceiling than that of the audience chamber. Here, instead of being man-sized, Engibil was half again as tall and all the more awe-inspiring.

Despite that, Sharur’s first thought, one the god luckily did not read, was What a lot of junk. That was not completely fair, and he knew it. Many of Engibil’s treasures were of gold and silver and precious stones. Those glowed in the light that poured out of the god. The lugals of Gibil, and the ensis before them, had given of the best they had.

But they had also literally followed the dictum strange things, rare things, beautiful things. The beautiful things were beautiful. The rare things were rare: Sharur gaped to see a necklace of huge, shimmering pearls. Caravans to distant Laravanglal would sometimes bring back from the east, along with the tin that hardened copper into bronze, a pearl or two, having paid enormous amounts of metal to gain them. Pearls as large as these, so many all together, each perfectly matched to its neighbors—Sharur had never known nor imagined the like.

And the strange things were ... strange. Why any lugal would have chosen to give Engibil a piece of pottery shaped like a spider and painted with alarming realism was beyond Sharur. And the basketwork dog standing on its hind legs to display a large erection might have been funny the first time someone saw it, but after that?

Engibil said, “Where is this thing into which the gods of the Alashkurrut are said to have poured their power? Do you see it? Do you know which of my many treasures it is?”

“Great god, I do not know where it is,” Sharur answered, looking to his father in consternation. “Mighty god, I do not know which of your many treasures it is.” His eyes went now here, now there. So many pieces in the treasury were, or could have been, of Alashkurri work. He felt no special power in any of them. How could he? He was only a man.

Tupsharru spoke: “Lord Engibil, now that you are among your treasures, can you not feel the power poured into one of them?”

Engibil frowned again. He turned in all directions inside the treasure room, to the north, to the east, to the south, and last of all to the west. He reached out his hands—and in the reaching he had as many hands as he wanted—to the shelves and tables set against each wall, as if feeling of the objects set on each one. The frown deepened. At last, Engibil turned back toward Sharur and Tupsharru and Ereshguna. “I do not know what this thing is,” the god said. “I do not know where it may be. I can feel nothing of it. Son of Ereshguna, are you sure the Alashkurri small gods were not playing a trick on you?”

“I am sure,” Sharur said. Seeing his father give him a doubtful look hurt worse than having the god disbelieve him. “I am sure,” he repeated.

“Maybe this thing is elsewhere in the city,” Engibil said, “although, as I told you, I sensed it nowhere. Maybe the great gods of the Alashkurrut were playing tricks on their small gods.”

“Tricks are all very well, great god,” Sharur said. “But, mighty god, if not for the reason Kessis and Mitas gave me, why have the great gods of Alashkurru come to hate the people of Gibil? Why have even the gods of Kudurru come to despise the people of Gibil?”

“I have told you what I know,” Engibil replied. “I have told you what I do not know. It is enough.” He reached out and once more took hold of Sharur and Ereshguna and Tupsharru by the shoulder. In an instant, the three men and the god were back in the audience chamber atop the temple. “I dismiss you,” Engibil said. “Go on about your lawful occasions, and seek no longer to circumvent my will.”

His words beat against Sharur’s mind like a windstorm. The young merchant had all he could do to nerve himself to ask the god whether he might speak. When he did, Engibil’s eyes burned into his own until he had to struggle to hold his own gaze steady. At last, Engibil dipped his head in brusque assent. “I thank you, great god,” Sharur gasped as the pressure of the god’s will eased. “You are generous, mighty god. Here is what I would ask you: have I your leave to go on searching for this thing of which Kessis and Mitas told me?”

“If I, a god, cannot find this thing, why do you imagine that you, a mortal man, will have any better fortune?” Engibil demanded. “I do not believe this thing even exists, no matter what the small gods of Alashkurru may have told you.”

“If it does not exist, my searching will do no harm,” Sharur answered. “If it should exist, my searching may do some good.” Was he contradicting the god? He did not worry about that until he had already spoken, by which time it was too late.

If contradiction there was, Engibil, fortunately, once more failed to notice it. “When mortals have so little time,” he said, “I marvel at the ways in which they choose to fritter it away. Do what you will in this, son of Ereshguna. You will discover nothing, the reason being there is nothing to discover.”

Sharur did a very human thing: he accepted the permission and ignored the scorn behind it. “I thank you, great god,” he said, bowing low.

Now the fires of Engibil’s eyes were banked, hooded. “I do not say you are welcome,” the god replied. “Be gone from my sight.”