Between the Rivers

6

“My son,” Ereshguna said as he and Sharur made their way back toward their home from the temple, “my son, in some things in life you will win, in others you will lose. I do not think you will win in this. If you keep at it, you will only bring grief down upon yourself. If you persist, you will only break your heart.”

“Grief has already tumbled down upon me, like an avalanche in the mountains,” Sharur answered. “The falling stones of grief have already broken my heart, as a pot breaks when it falls on hard ground. Unless I go on, my heart can never be whole again.”

“The god asked of you a fair question,” Ereshguna said. “If with his power he cannot find this thing that may or may not exist, how can you hope to do so?”

“If I cannot hope, what sort of man am I?” Sharur lowered his voice to a wary whisper. He covered the eyes of Engibil’s amulet that he wore on his belt. “Was it a god who learned to free copper from its ore? No: it was a man. Was it a god who learned to mix tin with copper to make bronze? No: it was a man. Was it a god who learned marks on clay might last longer than a man’s memory? No: for gods’ memories fail not. It was a man.”

“Power lies behind all those things,” Ereshguna answered. “They may yet grow gods who feed from that power.”

“May it not come to pass! ” Tupsharru exclaimed.

“They may indeed grow such gods,” Sharur admitted. “But they also may not. The power may remain in the hands of the men who work the metal. The power may remain in the hands of the men who inscribe the clay. Has this not been the hope of Giblut since the days of the first lugal?”

“It has,” his father said. “I would not deny it. It is my hope now, no less than it is yours. But I do not see how the power in metalworking will help you find the thing of which the Alashkurri small gods told you. I do not see how the power in writing will help you find the thing into which Alashkurri great gods poured their power—if such a thing there be.”

Sharur walked along for several paces before he spoke again. His strides were angry; his sandals scuffed up dust.

At last, he said, “If I find this thing, I can take it back to the gods of the Alashkurrut.” Or I indeed break it, he thought savagely, but he did not speak that thought aloud. Ereshguna no doubt knew it was in his mind. “If I do not find it, how shall I find the bride-price for Ningal? Engibil holds my oath in his hand. He holds my oath in his heart. He will not let it go. If he does not let it go, I cannot buy the bride I desire. Dimgalabzu has given me a year, no more. Time is passing. Time is fleeting. I must find the thing.”

“Many a man comes to grief, forgetting the difference between must and shall," Ereshguna answered. “That you want to find this thing—if thing there be, as I say—that you need to find it, no one can doubt. That you shall find it—if it be there for the finding—you cannot know.”

“Your words hold truth, Father,as they always do,” Sharur said. “But this I know, and know in fullness: if I search not for this thing, whatever it may be, I shall not find it. Therefore I will search, come what may.”

Ereshguna’s breath hissed out of him in a long sigh. “If you will not heed the god, perhaps you will heed your father. Son of my flesh, I tell you this is not a wise course. Son of my heart, I tell you this way heartbreak lies. I do not believe you will find the thing you seek. A man who turns aside from the road to chase a mirage is never seen again.”

“A man who walks past an oasis, thinking it a mirage, dies of thirst in the desert,” Sharur replied. “If I do not wed Ningal, I know my heart shall break within me. If I search for the thing and fail to find it, perhaps my heart shall break and perhaps it shall not. If I search for the thing and do find it, of a certainty my heart shall not break. You are a merchant, Father. Which of those strikes you as the best bargain?”

“Bargains are for copper. Bargains are for tin. Bargains are for barley. Bargains are for wine of dates,” Ereshguna said. “For my son’s happiness, for my son’s safety, I do not speak of bargains. I care nothing about bargains. With some things, a man should not bargain.”

“For your son’s happiness,” Sharur repeated. “Unless I do this, I shall not be happy. This I know. If I do it, I may be unhappy. I know this, too. I am a man. I may fail. Even gods fail. But I will try. I must try. What have I to lose?”

“Your life, my brother!” Tupsharru blurted.

Ereshguna walked on for several more steps. At last, he said, “Tupsharru is right. If you hold to this course, it could even be that you will lose your life.”

Before Sharur could reply, his grandfather’s ghost spoke up: “Sooner or later, this is the fate of all men.”

Ereshguna looked exasperated. “Ghost of my father, how long have you been listening to us?”

“Oh, not long,” the ghost replied in airy tones. “I was just coming up the street and saw the three of you coming down, looking glum as if your favorite puppy just died. If you want to talk about death, you should talk with someone who knows what he’s talking about.”

“When a man rich in years dies, he will be a ghost rich in years, too,” Ereshguna said, “for his grandchildren will recall him well, and he will be able to speak with them even when they grow old themselves, and will not sink down to the underworld to be forgotten by mortals until they die. But when a young man passes away, his stay as a ghost is also cut short, for only those of his age or older could know him while he lived on earth.”

Sharur’s grandfather’s ghost sniffed. “The real trouble is, some people don’t care to listen.” Sharur could not see the ghost, but got the distinct impression that it indignantly flounced off.

His father said, “I meant my words. You play no game here. If you seek a track where the god says there is no track, if you go on where the god bids you halt, you put yourself in danger. It may be that you put yourself in such danger, no mortal man may, escape it.”

“I will go on,” Sharur said. Maybe the shadows from the harsh sun above carved the lines in Ereshguna’s face deeper than Sharur had ever seen them before, or maybe, for the first time, his father looked old.

Inadapa, the steward to Kimash the lugal, drank a polite cup of beer before getting to the business that had brought him to the Street of Smiths: “The mighty lugal would speak with the son of Ereshguna over what passed in the temple of Engibil yesterday.”

Sharur drained his own cup of beer and rose from the stool on which he sat. “I will gladly speak with Kimash. I will gladly tell him what passed in the temple of Engibil yesterday.”

“The mighty lugal will be glad to learn once more how readily you obey him,” Inadapa said. “Let us go.”

“I obey him as I would obey the god,” Sharur said. He bowed to Ereshguna. “My father, I shall soon see you again.”

“And I shall soon see you again,” Ereshguna replied, returning the bow. His face w'as calm now, but Sharur could hear the worry in his voice, though he did not think Inadapa could. Sharur understood why his father sounded worried.

He obeyed Engibil only grudgingly, under the compulsion of the god’s superior strength. Such grudging, partial obedience, if given to Kimash, would be less than the lugal wanted.

“Let us go,” Inadapa repeated; like any good servant, he was impatient in the service of his master.

Pausing only to put on his hat, Sharur walked with the lugal’s steward along the Street of Smiths to the palace. As had happened when he went to the palace with his father, he had to wait while a stream of donkeys and slaves carrying bricks and mortar blocked his path. “The mighty lugal adds to his own glory,” he remarked, to see how Inadapa would respond.

As usual, the steward’s face was bland. “The lugal’s glory is the glory of Gibil,” he replied, and now he seemed to wait for Sharur’s answer.

In most cities of Kudurru, a man would have said, The god's glory is the glory of my city. Men still did say that in Gibil, but how many of them meant it? If Kimash could go on building for himself even while Engibil sought to reassert his own pdwer, the lugal must have thought his hold on the rule fairly secure.

Sharur said, “May the lugal’s glory prevail.” Inadapa weighed the words, as Sharur would have weighed gold brought in by a debtor. They must have brought down the pan of his mental balance, for he nodded once, in sharp satisfaction, and set no more word-lined traps for the master merchant’s son.

As soon as the donkeys and slaves had passed, Inadapa led Sharur through the maze of hallways, past the endless storerooms and workrooms of the palace, to the audience chamber of Kimash the lugal. As Kimash had before, he sat on his high seat. As Sharur had before, he groveled in front of that high seat, lying with his face in the dust until the lugal bade him rise.

“I come in obedience to your summons, mighty lugal,” he said, brushing dirt from his kilt.

“Yes, you do,” Kimash agreed. He had the arrogance of a god, if not the inherent powers. “Speak, to me of your journey to Imhursag, to the land of our enemies.” Sharur told that tale, and also the tale of his visit to Engibil’s temple. Leaning forward on his high seat, Kimash asked, “And did Engibil find this secret thing of which you spoke, this thing into which the great gods of the Alashkurrut poured their power?”

Regretfully, Sharur spoke the truth: “Mighty lugal, he did not. He found himself unable to tell it from any other offering he has received. He is of the opinion that the thing does not exist.”

Kimash might not have had the inherent powers of a god, but he did own sharp ears and sharp wits. “He is of that opinion, you say. What of you, son of Ereshguna? Do you hold a different opinion?”

“I do, mighty lugal,” Sharur answered. “I believed then, and I still believe now, that the Alashkurri gods intended no one to know this thing for what it was. The wanax or merchant who traded it to us knew it not, the trader who took it knew it not, and I think the god of the city also knows it not. But when will a god admit to ignorance? When will a god say he does not know?”

Kimash’s chuckle was harsh as windblown sand. “When will a man admit to ignorance?” he returned. “When will a man say he does not know? Truly we are shaped in the image of those who made us; is it not so? Why do you believe your own thoughts, not those of the god, who knows so much more than you?”

As he would have done in a hard bargain, Sharur worked to hold his face still. What he concealed now was not the lowest price he would accept but dismay. Of all the men in Gibil, he had judged Kimash likeliest to believe him, likeliest to support him. Instead, the lugal made it plain he sided with Engibil.

Carefully, Sharur said, “Mighty lugal, as I answered before, this is a secret thing. Gods may keep secrets from gods. Even men may keep secrets from gods, provided always the gods do not know secrets are being kept.”

“Speak not of this, son of Ereshguna, lest a certain god hear,” Kimash said.

Sharur bowed his head. “I obey.” Of all the men in Gibil, likely of all the men in Kudurru, perhaps of all the men in the world, the lugal kept the most secrets of that sort from the gods.

“Has your judgment not another reason?” Kimash asked. “Has your opinion not another source? The Diyala rises from many springs. The Yarmuk flows out of many streams. Do you not believe that, if this thing of which you speak exists, you will gain profit and favor not only from Engibil but also from the gods of the Alashkurrut? Do you not believe that, if this thing into which the gods of the mountains have poured their powers is real, you will be able to wed the woman you have long desired?”

“Yes, I believe those things.” Sharur bowed his head again. “You are able to see deep into the heart of a man, mighty lugal; you would have made a formidable merchant.” On his high seat, Kimash preened like a songbird displaying himself before a possible mate. But Sharur went on, “I do not believe this has clouded my judgment. I do not believe this has shaped my opinion. My views spring from what I have seen and heard, not from what I have hoped.”

Kimash’s frown was nearly as formidable as Engibil’s. “There you make a claim not even the gods could make in truth. What man’s views do not spring from what he hopes and believes?”

“The views of a man who follows truth,” Sharur replied.

“Ah. Truth. But there is truth, and then there is truth. Remember the onion, son of Ereshguna.” Now the lugal, who had seen as much of human frailty and as much of human desire as any man ever bom, seemed almost amused. “From which layer of truth do your views spring? Is it not also truth that you wish to lie down in love with Ningal the daughter of Dimgalabzu the smith?”

“Yes, that is a truth.” Sharur admitted what he could hardly deny.

“Does not this truth color your view of other truths, as a man with an eye full of blood will see things red?” Kimash asked.

”It... may,” Sharur said reluctantly. He had always know the lugal was a formidable man, but never till now had all Kimash’s strength of purpose been aimed at him and him alone. He felt very alone indeed.

“Ah,” Kimash repeated. “It is good to hear you say so much. Many would be too blind to their own failings to reckon that they had any. Well, here is what I say to you in return, son of Ereshguna. I say, give over your talk of secret things. I say, give over your dream of magic-filled things. I say, accept the world as you find it is here. I will reward you for your sendee to the city. I will repay you for your braving the city of the Imhursagut. Engibil has shown you that you may not have for your wife the daughter of Dimgalabzu. Choose any other woman in Gibil, son of Ereshguna, even if it be one of my own daughters, and not only shall you wed her, but the bride-price for her shall come from the treasury of the lugal. I have spoken, and it shall be as I say.”

“Mighty lugal, you are kind,” Sharur said. “Mighty lugal, you are generous.”

“All these things are true,” Kimash said complacently. If the gods were not immune to flattery, how could a mere man escape its charms? The lugal went on, “Then you will obey me, and give over your foolish search for a thing that is not and cannot be.”

“Mighty lugal, I—” Sharur hesitated. Kimash. he realized, was also anything but immune to the problem of there being more than one possible layer to the truth. The lugal was astute enough to see that in others, but not in himself. One of his principal aims was to keep Engibil quiet and satisfied. Disagreeing with Engibil once the god had said he could sense no object into which the great gods of the Alashkurrut had poured their power would only stir him up and anger him. Therefore, Engibil had to be right and Sharur wrong. What Kimash wanted to be true influenced what Kimash believed to be true. But did it influence what was true?

“Then you will obey me,” the lugal repeated, his voice now going deep and harsh. His eyes glittered. He was not, and made it very plain he was not, a man whom Sharur would have been wise to challenge.

“Mighty lugal, I—” The words stuck in Sharur’s throat. Had he said them all, he would have put Ningal aside forever. He could not bear to do that. Instead of speaking, he bowed his head. Even if it was not, that looked like acquiescence. Did Kimash so choose, he could take it for acquiescence.

He did so choose. “Son of Ereshguna, it is good,” he said, contented once more now that he thought he was being obeyed—even as Engibil was contented when he thought he was being obeyed, regardless of where the truth really lay. Smiling, he went on, “Is it not so, after all, that in the dark one woman is the same as the next?”

Sharur did not answer. He thought back to the Imhursaggi slave woman with whom he had lain after coming back from the mountains of Alashkurru. She had not been the same from one round to the next: fire when she reckoned she was serving the gods, ice when ministering to Sharur’s lusts alone. That being so, how could Kimash presume to say another woman might—no, another woman would—satisfy Sharur as well as Ningal?

Kimash was the lugal. He could say what he pleased. Who in Gibil would presume to tell him he was wrong?

Again, he took Sharur’s silence for agreement. “I thank you for your labor on my behalf and on behalf of the city of Gibil, son of Ereshguna. As I said, I shall reward you. You have but to choose, and the woman you desire shall be yours, even unto one of my own daughters. Go now, and speak to me again when you have made your choice. I await your return.”

“The mighty lugal is generous. The mighty lugal is kind.” Sharur bowed once more. Generous indeed, to give me anything except what I truly want.

“The house of Ereshguna is mighty in my aid,” Kimash said—generously. He clapped his hands. “Inadapa!” The steward, who had gone, reappeared as if by magic. “Inadapa, conduct the son of Ereshguna to his home once more.”

“Mighty lugal, I obey,” Inadapa said. Of course Inadapa obeys, Sharur thought. What else is he good for? The steward turned to him. “Son of Ereshguna, I will conduct you to your home once more.”

Sharur’s eyes filled with sudden tears when he stepped from the gloom of the palace out into bright sunshine once more. He said, “You need not come home with me, steward to the lugal. Believe me, I know the way.”

“Very well,” Inadapa said, rather to Sharur’s surprise: he had thought the steward would obey Kimash’s instructions in all particulars, simply because it was the lugal who had given them. Seeing Sharur startled, Inadapa explained, “The mighty lugal gives his servitors many duties. The gods, however, give them only so much time in which to do those duties.”

“Ah,” Sharur said; that did indeed make sense. “Go back to your duties, then, Inadapa.” But the steward had already gone.

Up the Street of Smiths Sharur trudged. Every step seemed harder than the one before, as if he were walking uphill, though the Street of Smiths lay on ground as level as any in Gibil. His father had told him to accept the word of the god. Kimash the lugal not only had told him to accept the word of the god but had sought to sweeten that with the promise of whatever woman in Gibil he wanted (save one woman only) and her bride-price as well.

Believe the god. Listen to the god! Sharur kicked at the dirt as he walked along. Gods could err just as men could. Enimhursag had slain a Zuabi—the wrong Zuabi—at the inn where Sharur stayed, thinking he was slaying a spy. Engibil could miss magic that was meant to the missed.

Or Engibil might simply lie, although Sharur could see no reason why he would.

But Sharur seemed to be the only one who considered those possibilities. He thought he understood Kimash’s reasons for neglecting them, just as Kimash thought he understood Sharur’s reasons for believing them. Ereshguna? Well, Sharur’s father had heard Engibil; he had not heard Mitas and Kessis. Sharur was the only one who had heard them, and what was his own word worth, against that of Engibil?

“No one believes me,” he muttered, and scuffed along with his head down.

He did not see the fever demon perched on a wall, not till too late. Batwings flapping furiously, the demon flew into his face. Its foul breath filled his mouth. He staggered back in horror and dismay. Only too late did he reach for the amulet with Engibil’s eyes he wore on his belt. Only too late did he drive the demon from him with the amulet. The demon fled, screeching, but triumphant laughter filled the screeches. The demon knew it had sickened him.

He knew it, too. His steps, already laggard, slowed still further. By the time he reached his father’s house, he was staggering. Ereshguna was dickering with a smith. On seeing Sharur, he broke off in alarm. “My son!” he exclaimed. “What has happened to you?”

“Fever demon.” Sharur got the words out through chattering teeth. Even in the heat of Gibil’s summer, he shivered.

“Have to be careful of those demons,” the smith said, clicking his tongue between his teeth. If was good advice. Like so much good advice, it came too late to do any good.

Ereshguna shouted for his slaves. Two men and the Imhursaggi woman with whom Sharur had lain came running at his summons. “Put Sharur on blankets,” he told them. “Put wet cloths on his head. A fever demon has breathed into his mouth.” The men helped support Sharur, who was wobbling on his feet, as he went into the courtyard and lay down in the shade of the southern wall.

“Fetch blankets, as the master said,” one of the men told the other. “He should not lie on the naked ground.” The second slave nodded and hurried off. So did the slave woman.

He came back, blankets in his arm, along with the woman, who carried rags and a pot of water. The two men raised Sharur, first at the shoulders, then at the hips, so they could get the blankets under him. “Is that not better, master’s son?” one of them asked with a slave’s solicitude, sticky as honey.

“Better,” he said vaguely. His wits were already wandering. He told himself over and over he was a fool for not having seen the fever demon sooner. A man could die of the sickness a demon breathed into him. Regardless of how often he repeated them, no thoughts wanted to stay in his mind. He drifted from thinking he was a fool for not having seen the fever demon to thinking he was a fool for believing Kessis and Mitas to thinking he was a fool for not having gladly accepted Kimash’s offer of one of his daughters and bride-price to boot to thinking he was a fool for worrying about women, considering how he felt.

Through it all, the one thing that did not change was that he thought himself a fool.

The Imhursaggi slave woman dropped a rag into the pot of water, then wrung it out and set it on his forehead. “It is cool,” she said in her quiet voice. “It will help make you cool.”

“I thank you,” Sharur said. For a little while, when the damp linen first touched him, the demon’s fever fled, and he was himself again, or someone close to himself. But the fever was stronger than a cold compress. It quickly came back, and his wits went their own way once more.

“Will you watch him?” one of the men asked the woman. “Will you tend to him?”

“I will watch him,” she answered. “I will tend to him. It is easier workman most they might give me.” The men went away. The woman soaked another compress, wrung it out, and set it on Sharur’s forehead to replace the one that the heat of the day and the heat of his fever had dried. Her hands were cool and damp and deft. He noticed—as much as he noticed anything then. She sat beside him, humming a hymn to Enimhursag.

Somehow, he recognized it for what it was. Had his mind been fully under the control of his will, he would have known Enimhursag had no power here, not in the heart of the city of the god who was his rival. But he did not think of that. He had forgotten where he was. He thought of Enimhursag, and of Enimhursag’s hunt for him. He thought Enimhursag was hunting him again, or perhaps that Enimhursag had never stopped hunting him.

He moaned and writhed on the blankets. The wet rag fell off onto the ground beside him. The Imhursaggi slave stopped humming. “Lie easy,” she said, and put the compress back on his head. And, because he no longer heard the hymn, he did lie easy for a bit. But, seeing him relax, the Imhursaggi woman also relaxed, and began to hum once more. That brought fear flooding back, as melting mountain snow brought the Yarmuk’s flood every spring.

Before long, though, his mother and his sister came out into the courtyard, both of them exclaiming over him. They dismissed the slave woman and took over caring for him themselves. “There—do you see?” Betsilim said triumphantly to Nanadirat. “He is better already.”

His sister set a hand on his forehead. “He is still hot as a smelting fire,” she said, worry in her voice.

“The demon only just now breathed its foul breath into him,” his mother answered, sounding as if she was trying to reassure herself and Nanadirat both. “He will mend.”

“He had better.” Nanadirat stared fiercely down at Sharur. “I am so angry at him. How could he not spy a fever demon waiting to pounce?”

Betsilim wrung out a new compress and started to put it on Sharur, but he tried to roll away from her. “No, no,” she said, as she had when he was very small. “You have to hold still. You have to rest.”

He heard her and Nanadirat as if from very far away. Everything seemed very far away, his own body very much included. He had quieted for a moment when his mother and sister replaced the slave woman, but not because he preferred their touch to hers, only because he no longer heard her humming the hymn to Enimhursag. He tried to explain that to them, but forgot what he was going to say before the words could pass his lips.

His spirit drifted away from his body, almost as if he had become a ghost while still living. He wondered if ghosts were as confused as he was, then wondered what he had been wondering about, and then wondered if he had been wondering.

Huzziyas the wanax raised a cup to toast his health. An army of spearmen and donkey-drawn chariots drove another, identically equipped, army back against a canal, trapping it. Some men shouted Engibil’s name. Some shouted Enimhursag’s. Which were which? He could not tell. The army trapped against the canal broke like a shattered cup.

Ningal’s face drifted over him like a full moon. He reached up to touch it and it broke like a shattered cup. He started to cry. Suddenly, without warning, everything went white. I am dead, he thought. The fever has slain me. Now I am a ghost, as my grandfather is. I will hunt down that fever demon and pull off its wings. How it will wail!

He heard it wailing already, though he had not yet begun the hunt. Then he heard a woman’s voice—Ningal’s? No, it was another’s. “Fix that compress, Mother,” Nanadirat said. “I don’t think he wants it to cover his eyes. Did you hear him moan?”

“I heard him,” Betsilim said. “The fever has sent him out of his head. But maybe you are right.” Color and shapes—swirling, floating shapes with no plain meaning— filled Sharur’s vision once more. Maybe he wasn’t dead after all. The demon would escape, to sicken other people.

“How is he?” a man’s voice asked. Huzziyas the wanax? Kimash the lugal? Engibil the god? Whoeyer it was, his voice sounded very much like that of Sharur’s brother Tup- sharru. But Tupsharru was not in the mountains of Alashkurru, was he? Sharur knew he was in the mountains, in the snowy mountains. How else could he have been so cold?

After a while, it started raining on him. So he thought at first, at any rate. Then he wondered whether the gods were angry at him or pleased with him, for it was raining beer. The gods talked among themselves. “Sit him up a little more, can’t you? It’s spilling all over him,” a goddess said.

“I’m sorry,” a god answered. “Here, try again.” More rain or beer or whatever it was spilled on Sharur’s face and chest.

“You have to drink, Sharur,” another goddess said.

Dimly, he wondered why the gods had voices so much like those of his mother and sister and brother. They were gods, though. They could do as they pleased. And if they ordered him to drink, he could only obey. Drink he did, even if he choked a little doing it.

“There, that’s better,” the goddess who sounded like his sister said.

He had pleased the gods. He took that thought with him as he spiraled down into the dark.

When Sharur woke, he wondered for a moment whether the mud bricks of the house in which he had lived his whole life had finally fallen down. More to the point, he wondered if they had fallen down on him. He certainly felt as if something large and heavy had collapsed on him.

Raising his head took all the strength he had. Sitting not far away from him was his father. “Sharur?” Ereshguna said softly. “My son?”

“Yes,” Sharur said—or rather, that was what he tried to say. Only a harsh, wordless croak passed his lips. Trying to speak made him feel how weak he was. Even holding his eyelids open took an effort.

But the croak seemed to satisfy his father. “You understand me!” Ereshguna exclaimed.

“Yes,” Sharur said. This time, it was a recognizable word. Sharur noticed his mouth tasted as if someone had spilled a chamberpot into it. He lay back down flat; holding his head up seemed more trouble than it was worth. Those few moments of it were making him pant as if he had run all the way from Imhursag to Gibil.

Ereshguna ran: out of the courtyard and into the house, crying, “Sharur has his wits about him again!”

Then he came running back to Sharur, followed closely by Tupsharru and Betsilim and Nanadirat, with the house slaves a little farther behind. His family hugged him and kissed him and made much of him. He lay there and accepted it; he had not the strength to do anything but lie there and accept it. His mother and sister both let tears stream down their cheeks. A little at a time, he realized he must have come very close to dying.

“I’m all right,” he whispered.

“You’re no such thing,” his mother said indignantly. “Don’t talk nonsense. Look at you.” He couldn’t look at himself; that would have meant lifting his head again, which was beyond him. But Betsilim was doing the looking for him: “You’re nothing but skin stretched over bones. I’ve seen starving beggars with more flesh on them.”

He tried to shrug. Even that wasn’t easy. Nanadirat asked, “If we give you bread and beer, can you chew and swallow?”

“I think so,” he answered. “It was raining beer on me not so long ago. The gods made it rain beer on me not so long ago. I remember.” He felt proud of remembering anything.

His mother and brother and sister seemed less impressed. With a distinct sniff in her voice, Nanadirat said, “That wasn’t the gods. That was us. And it wouldn’t have been raining beer on you if you’d drunk it the way you were supposed to.”

“Oh,” he said, feeling foolish. “I suppose a lot of the things I think happened didn’t really, then. Huzziyas the wanax didn’t come here to drink my health, did he? He raised the cup, and...”

Betsilim and Nanadirat were looking at each other. He recognized their expressions: they were trying not to laugh, and not succeeding very well. Betsilim said, “My son, I am surprised you remember anything at all of the past five days, even if you remember things that are not so.”

“Five ... days?” Sharur said slowly. “Was I out of my head for five days? It’s a wonder my spirit found its way back to my body.”

“We think so, too,” Betsilim said, and started to cry again. Nanadirat put an arm around her mother’s shoulder.

The Imhursaggi slave woman, who had gone into the house, came out once more carrying a tray. “Here is bread,” she said. “Here is beer.” She set the tray on the ground in front of Betsilim.

Tupsharru came up and supported Sharur in a half-sitting position. A god with his voice had done that while Sharur lay sick. No. Sharur laughed at himself. That had been— that must have been—his wits wandering again.

He looked down at himself, now that he could. He had indeed lost flesh, although he was not so thin as his mother made him out to be. Nanadirat held a cup up to his mouth. He took a sip of sour beer, then swallowed. That felt wonderful, like rain for a flower after a long dry spell.

But Nanadirat did not merely want to rain on him, to make him bloom. By the way she tried to pour beer into him, she wanted to flood him. Like a canal that had fallen into disrepair, he could not take in as much as she wanted to give him. To keep himself from drowning, he raised his arm. That did more than he had intended:, not only did it stop her from giving him the beer, it knocked the cup from her hand. The cup flew against the wall that shaded him and shattered.

“Maybe he has not got his wits about him after all,” Tupsharru said. But he sounded more amused than annoyed.

“I’m sorry,” Sharur said, feeling very foolish as he stared at the shards of the broken cup. He remembered ... But no, that had surely been nonsense, too.

“You need not be sorry,” Betsilim said. “Your sister tried to give you too much too fast.” She turned to the slave woman. “Fetch another cup.”

“I obey,” the slave said, as she had when Sharur ordered her to lie with him. She hurried back into the house.

“Bread, please?” Sharur said.

Betsilim tore off a piece of bread from the loaf that sat on the tray. Sharur reached out to take it. Instead of handing it to him, his mother put it straight into his mouth, as if he were a baby. Had he felt a little stronger, that might have made him angry. As things were, he chewed and swallowed without complaint. “Is it good?” his mother asked, again as she might have done when he was very small.

He nodded. “More?” he said hopefully, and Betsilim fed him again.

The Imhursaggi slave woman came out with a new cup to replace the one Sharur had broken. Nanadirat filled it with the dipper and offered it to him. This time, he drank without spilling any. It made him feel very strong. “Another cup?” he said.

“Yes, but this will be your last for now,” his sister Said. “Too much all at once after too long without much will make you sick again.”

“I know how we’ll be able to tell when he’s truly better,” Tupsharru said, mischief in his voice.

Betsilim was so glad for the words, she did not hear the mischief. “How?” she asked.

Tupsharru grinned. “When he wants the slave woman, not bread and beer.”

Betsilim and Nanadirat both made faces at him. The slave woman looked down at the ground, no expression at all on her face. Sharur watched the byplay without caring much about it. He recalled desire, but it was the last thing on his mind.

He yawned. Maybe the beer was making him sleepy. Maybe it was nothing but his own weakness. “Let me down,” he said to Tupsharru. He yawned again as his brother eased him to the blanket. He thought he stayed awake long enough for his head to touch it,*but was never quite sure afterwards.

His sleep, this time, was deep and restful, with none of the fever dreams and visions that had troubled his illness. He woke in darkness, only pale moonlight illuminating the courtyard. He felt stronger. Without even thinking about it, he sat up by himself. That proved he was stronger.

He got to his feet. He wobbled a little, but had no trouble staying upright. A chamberpot sat on the ground not far from where he’d lain. He walked over and made water into it, then lay back down on the blanket. He hoped sleep would come again for him, but it did not. Mosquitoes buzzed. One landed on his chest; he felt it walking through the hair there. .He slapped at it, and hoped he’d killed it.

His grandfather’s ghost spoke in his ear: “You are like an owl, awake while others sleep. You are like a cat, prowling through the night.”

“Hardly prowling,” Sharur said with a low-voiced laugh. More often than not, his grandfather’s ghost was a nuisance, bothering him when he would sooner have paid it no attention. Now, for once, he was glad of its company. Still speaking quietly, he went on, “I greet you. Is it well with you?”

“As well as it can be,” the ghost answered. “I have only the memory of bread. I have only the memory of beer. I have only the memory of desire.”

Sharur remembered what Tupsharru had said. “As things are right now, I also have only the memory of desire.”

The laughter that came from his grandfather’s ghost held a bitter edge. “You know not what you say. Soon enough, you will burn like a furnace again, and you will tip up the legs of that slave or give a courtesan copper to suck your prong. I have only the memory, not the thing itself. I shall never have it, never again.”

“And even if I slake my lust, what will it mean?” Sharur asked, in his weakness after being ill matching the ghost’s self-pity. “I shall not have the one woman I truly want.”

“Having any woman is better than having no woman at all.” His grandfather’s ghost was not about to be outdone. “Having thin beer is better than having no beer at all. Having moldy bread is better than having no bread at all.”

“You have the essence of beer. You have the essence of the bread,” Sharur reminded him.

“It is not the same.” The ghost’s sigh was like the breeze blowing through the branches of a dead bush. “And you say nothing about the essence of a woman. Tell me, where shall I find the essence of a woman?”

“That I do not know.” Sharur smiled in the darkness. “Were there such a thing, many living men would seek it: I do know that.”

“And the house of Ereshguna would sell it. The house of Ereshguna would profit from it. I know my son.” The ghost of Sharur’s grandfather spoke with a sort of melancholy pride. Then it said, “I am glad you remain among those with flesh on their bones. When your spirit ran free of your body, I feared you would join me here among the ghosts for some little while, and then drift down into the underworld, into the realm of the forgotten.”

On the blanket, Sharur shivered, though the night was not cold and though he was not feverish. “Truly I had a narrow escape from death because of the foul breath of the fever demon,” he said.

“Truly you had a narrow escape from death,” his grandfather’s ghost agreed. “But while your spirit wandered, you saw more widely than you have while still wearing flesh.”

“I saw more confusedly than I could while still wearing flesh,” Sharur said. “Some of it, I suppose, might have been real. Some would have been the real, transmuted by fever. And some, surely, was nothing but fever.”

“Ah, but which was which?” His grandfather’s ghost used a sly tone Sharur had sometimes heard from his father when he had overlooked something. “Which was real, and which the fever dream?”

“You sound as if you know the answer,” Sharur said. “Tell me.”

“The question is the essence, not the answer. I am a ghost. I am a thing of essences.” Sharur’s grandfather’s ghost sighed again. “But not the essence of a woman. Find a way to boil off the essence of a woman and the ghosts of men would give you whatever you wanted for it.”

“They would give the essence of gold, no doubt,” Sharur said. “Mortals are not things of essences. Tell me: I ask it of you again—which was real, and which the fever dream?”

“The question is the essence, not the answer,” his grandfather’s ghost repeated. “And now I shall go.”

Sharur had not known the ghost was there until it spoke. He could not have proved it was gone now. Was it mocking him, or had it tried to tell him something important? Before he could decide, he fell asleep again.

Slowly, Sharur recovered from the sickness the fever demon had breathed into him. His strength came back, little by little; he ate bread and salt fish and drank beer to restore the flesh of which the fever demon had robbed him. One day, he noticed that, when the Imhursaggi slave woman brought him food and drink, he was eyeing her body. She noticed, too, and departed as quickly as she could. He thought about ordering her back, but in the end did not bother. Though desire had returned, it was not so urgent as to make him want to lie with her.

A few days after that, he left his home and went out into Gibil once more. His steps were slow and halting, so slow and halting as to make him realize that, while he had regained much strength, he was still a long way from having regained it all.

He bought beans fried in fat from a man who cooked them over a brazier set up on a small table he would carry from place to place. The fellow handed them to him in a twist of date-palm leaf. Eating gave Sharur an excuse to stand still and rest. His weakness angered him, but he could do nothing about it.

People and beasts of burden surged past him. He smiled to watch a couple of little naked farm boys with long switches chivying ducks along toward the market square. The ducks fussed and complained, but kept on moving. Some of them, the lucky ones, might be kept for egg layers. The rest would soon be seethed or roasted. Though few foreigners came to Gibil these days, the Giblut still traded busily among themselves.

Sharur had almost finished his beans when a small, thin fellow came up to the man who prepared them and said, “Let me have some of those, if you please.” He opened his right hand to display several broken bits of copper. The cook held out his own hand. He took the copper bits, hefted them, nodded in satisfaction, and gave the newcomer a ladleful of beans in a leaf. The fellow beamed at him. “Thank you, friend. These’ll fill the hole in my belly.”

He spoke with a Zuabi accent. At first, that was all Sharur noticed about him, for it stood out these days. Then he took a longer look at the fellow. “I know you!” he exclaimed.

“No, my master, I fear you are mis—” The Zuabi stopped. His eyes went wide and round in his narrow, clever face. He bowed very low. “No, my master, I am the one who is mistaken. It is an honor to see you again.”

“Come. Walk with me.” Sharur ate the last of his beans, threw the date-palm leaf on the ground, licked his fingers clean, and wiped them on his kilt. “Tell me how you come to be in Gibil, when we last met outside Zuabu.”

“As you might guess, my calling brings me here,” replied the man who had tried to rob Sharur’s caravan as it returned from the Alashkurru Mountains. He popped a handful of fried beans into his mouth.

“Yes, I might have guessed that,” Sharur agreed. “And what, if you would be so kind as to tell me one thing more, have you come to Gibil to steal?”

“I should not tell you what I have come to Gibil to steal,” the Zuabi thief said, “for Enzuabu commanded me to come to Gibil to steal it.”

Sharur walked along without saying anything. He knew, as the thief knew, the Zuabi would not have been able to steal anything in Gibil without the mercy Sharur had shown, and without Sharur’s letting him steal a token bit of jewelry to placate his god.

“I will tell you my name,” the thief said. “I am called Habbazu.”

“I will tell you my name,” Sharur returned. “I am called Sharur.”

They bowed to each other. Habbazu said, “And you are the son of a master merchant? So your men said, back by Zuabu.” Sharur nodded. Habbazu went on, “And I am the son of a thief, and each of us follows his father’s trade. Tell me, master merchant’s son, if a thief could have robbed you and slain you while you lay sleeping but did no more than pass by in the night, what would you owe that man?”

“In Gibil, we do not reckon thievery an honorable trade,” Sharur answered. “A man owes it to himself not to do anything dishonorable. He does not need any other man to owe him anything for refraining.” .

“We think differently in Zuabu,” Habbazu said. “With us, thievery is work like any other. If it were not honorable work, would the god of the city command us to undertake it?” .

“I know little of the ways of gods,” Sharur told him.

“Of course you know little of that—you are a Gibli.” Habbazu raised a bushy eyebrow. “The god of Gibil drowses. The god of Gibil sleeps.” Sharur wished Engibil had been drowsier; he wished the god had been sleepier. The thief continued, “If the god of Gibil were not a drowsy god, if he were not a sleepy god, I would not have come to—” He broke off.

“—To steal something that belongs to the god?” Sharur finished for him.

Habbazu walked rapidly along the narrow, twisting street. Sharur had to push himself to keep up with the thief, though he was larger and his legs longer. He got the feeling Habbazu could easily have escaped him, had he so chosen. Sweat rolled down his back. He got the feeling a playful three-year-old could easily have escaped him, had he so chosen.

Slowly, reluctantly, Habbazu said, “Yes, I am charged to steal something that belongs to the god of Gibil.” He held up a hand to keep Sharur from speaking. “By Enzuabu I swear, master merchant’s son, I have not come to Gibil to take anything of great value from the temple of Engibil. I have not come to Gibil to impoverish the god of the city.”

“Then why have you come?” Sharur burst out; “Has Enzuabu ordered you to steal something that has no value?”

Before, Habbazu had looked uncertain about how much he should say. Now he looked uncertain in a different way. “It may be so,” he answered. “For all I know, Enzuabu aims to embarrass Engibil before the other gods, to show that something once in the house of the god of Gibil is now in the house of the god of Zuabu. The gods score points off their neighbors no less than men.”

“What you say is true,” Sharur admitted. “If someone besides me had caught you, though, thief and son of a thief, what would your fate have been? Did your god care what your fate would have been? Or did Enzuabu think, He is only a man. What does it matter if the Giblut torture him to death?”

“I am Enzuabu’s servant,” Habbazu said with dignity.

“Are you Enzuabu’s slave? Are you Enzuabu’s dog? Are you an Imhursaggi, with the god looking out from behind your eyes more often than you do yourself?” Sharur asked. “Is your ensi no more a shield from Enzuabu than that?”

“I am not a slave. I am not a dog. Enzuabu be praised, I am not an Imhursaggi,” the thief replied. “Even Engibil, I have heard, can give orders from time to time. When Engibil tells a Gibli he shall do this or he shall not do that, is the god obeyed, or is he ignored and forgotten?”

“He is obeyed.” Sharur spoke in grudging tones made no less grudging because, had he dared ignore Engibil’s command to him, he could have given Dimgalabzu the bride-price for Ningal.

“Then why complain when a man of another city also obeys his god?” Habbazu said. “How is he different from you?”

“He is different in that he might harm my god. He is different in that he might harm my city.”

"Sharur moved slowly into the shade of a wall. “Shall we sit? I am recovering from the foul breath of a fever demon, and have not yet regained all my strength.”

Habbazu sank down beside him. “It shall be as you say. I am obliged to you. I do not see, though, how I might harm your city. I do not see how I might harm your god, except perhaps, as I say, to make him a laughingstock before the other gods. No god dies of laughter aimed at him over a small thing. No man dies of laughter aimed at him over a small thing, either, though some men wish they could.”

“What is this small thing you would steal?” Sharur asked. “What is this small thing Enzuabu would have you steal? You still have not told me what it might be.” As a merchant will, he put other words behind the words he spoke, using his voice to suggest to Habbazu that, if the thing was small enough, he might stand aside while the thief stole it. He had no such intention, but had no qualms about creating the impression that he did, either.

And create that impression he did. Habbazu waggled his fingers in a gesture of appreciation. “It is the smallest of things, master merchant’s son. It is the least of things, merchant of Gibil. Engibil would not miss it, were it to vanish from his temple. Your god would not note its passing, were it to disappear from his shrine. It is, after all, only a cup.”

“Mighty Engibil has among his treasures many cups he would miss greatly,” Sharur said. “He has cups of gold and cups of silver, cups for drinking beer and cups for drinking date wine.”

“This is no cup of gold. This is no cup of silver,” the thief from Zuabu assured him. “This is only a cup of clay, such as a tavern might employ. If it falls to the ground, it will shatter. Sharur, I speak nothing but the truth when I say that the god’s treasury would be better off without such a worthless, ugly piece.”

“If it be worthless, why does Enzuabu want it?” Sharur said, as he had before.

Habbazu shrugged. “I am not one to know the mind of the gods. I have given you my best guess: that the god of my city wants nothing more than to embarrass the god of yours before their fellows.”

It was, in fact, far from a bad guess, and better than any Sharur had come up with for himself—until this moment.

Keeping his tone light and casual, he asked, “Is it by any chance an Alashkurri cup?”

“Why, yes, as a matter of fact, it is.” The thief gave Sharur a look both puzzled and respectful. “How could you know that?”

“I know all manner of strange things.” Sharur got to his feet. It was a struggle, and he was panting by the time he made it; his body still craved rest. When Habbazu stayed on his haunches, enjoying the coolness of the shadowed dirt on which he sat, Sharur said, “Rise. Come with me. I think my father should hear the tale you tell. I think Kimash the lugal should perhaps hear the tale you tell.”

“Kimash the lugal?” Habbazu spoke in some alarm. “What will he do to me?” Without waiting for Sharur’s reply, he answered his own question: “He is a man claiming the power of a god. He will do whatever he likes to me. I am a thief, come to steal from his city. He will not welcome me with beer and barley porridge and salt fish and onions.”

“Do you think not?” Sharur raised an eyebrow. “You may be surprised.”

“I am surprised whenever I deal with Giblut,” Habbazu answered. “Sometimes the surprises are for the good. Sometimes—more often—they run in the opposite direction.”

“True, Kimash the lugal may not welcome you with beer and onions,” Sharur said. “Instead, he may welcome you with gold and silver.”

“You are pleased to joke with me, knowing you could have me slaughtered like a lamb because this is your city.” Habbazu paused and studied Sharur’s face. “No. You are not joking. You mean what you say. Why do you mean what you say?” His own face, sly and thin, radiated suspicion. He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Sharur recognized those signs, having seen them many times before in dickers. Habbazu had drawn his own conclusion about why the lugal might welcome him with gold and silver. Whatever that conclusion was, he did not intend to share it with Sharur. No matter what else the thief was, he was no fool. His conclusion was likely to lie somewhere on the right road—that the cup was something which would work to Kimash’s advantage and to Engibil’s disadvantage. Sharur realized he had told Habbazu too much, but no man, nor even a god, could recall words once spoken.

He wondered if he should raise the alarm and have Habbazu hunted through the streets of Gibil. That would take no more than a shout. But Engibil had in his temple several Alashkurri cups. Which was the one into which the gods of the mountains had poured their power? Sharur did not know, and did not know how to learn... unless Habbazu could tell him.

“Come with me to the house of my father,” he told the thief.

“I will come with you to the house of your father.” Habbazu did rise then, and bowed to Sharur. “Perhaps what you desire and what Enzuabu desires may both be accomplished.”

“Perhaps this is so,” Sharur agreed, nodding. Enzuabu wanted the Alashkurri cup stolen from Engibil’s temple. Sharur also wanted it removed from that temple. Sharur was willing to return it to the mountains of Alashkurru, though other notions had also crossed his mind. He was not sure what Enzuabu would do with it if it came into the thief-god’s hands.

He did not ask Habbazu whether Enzuabu had spoken of his plans for the cup. Having already put more thoughts than he wanted into Habbazu’s mind, he did not wish to give the thief any further ideas he had not already had.

Habbazu looked around with interest as he and Sharur made their way toward the Street of Smiths. “Poverty does not pinch Gibil,” he remarked. “Hunger does not stalk this city. In Zuabu, they say women here are poor. In Zuabu, they say women and children here starve.”

“Many people say many things that are not true about Gibil and the Giblut,” Sharur answered. He looked at Habbazu out of the coener of his eye. “Many gods say many things that are not true about Gibil and the Giblut. If this were not so, Zuabi, would you be here now?”

“After all this time, I doubt my skeleton would have much meat left on its bones,” the thief said coolly. “My ghost would be wandering my city, telling anyone who could hear what vicious, wanton murderers the men of Gibil were.”

That struck Sharur as an honest answer. He shook his head in bemusement. Getting an honest answer from a thief was like plucking sweet, fat dates from the branches of a thombush.

When they came out onto the Street of Smiths, Habbazu pointed down its length. “What is that great building there, the one that looks to be almost the size of the temple to your city god?”

“That is the lugal’s palace,” Sharur replied. “That is the building wherein the mighty Kimash makes his residence, as his father and grandfather did before him.”

“All that, for a mere man?” Habbazu shook his head in slow wonder. Then his eyes lit, as if torches had been kindled behind them. “He must have many treasures. And how can a mere man guard what is his as well as a god?” Instead of being angry at the lugal for usurping the god’s place, he saw that usurpation as an opportunity for himself.

“Do you know, Zuabi,” Sharur said, “you are farther along the path toward thinking like a man of Gibil than you may suspect.”

The thief drew himself up, the very image of affronted rectitude. “You have caught me,” he said. “You have spared me. Do you think this gives you the right to insult me?”

“I meant it for a compliment,” Sharur said mildly. That Habbazu made a joke of it meant he did not take it seriously, either, no matter what he said. Sharur thought Enzuabu would take it seriously. Wherever men lookbd first to their own advantage and only then toward service to their gods, there the unquestioned, unchallenged rule of the gods tottered.

And, as Habbazu walked along the Street of Smiths, he watched with keen interest. His eyes flicked to left and right, studying donkey trains, peering into smithies and shops. “We have smiths in Zuabu,” he said after a while. “I do not think we have so many smiths as do you Giblut. We have merchants. I do not think we have merchants so busy as do you Giblut.”

Sharur’s chest puffed out with pride. “Trade here is slow these days, too,” he said. Habbazu did not look as if he believed him, though that was simple truth.

Ereshguna was pressing a stylus into a tablet of damp clay when Sharur led Habbazu into his home. His father looked unhappy as he wrote, which likely meant he was reckoning up accounts. As trade with other cities and other lands declined, the accounts gave less and less reason for a man to look anything but unhappy.

Thus, when Sharur and the thief came in, Ereshguna set down the tablet with every sign of relief. “I greet you, my son,” he said, bowing. He turned to Habbazu and bowed again. “And I greet your companion as well, though I have not yet had the pleasure and honor of making his acquaintance.”

“Father, I present to you Habbazu, who visits Gibil from the city of Zuabu,” Sharur said. “He practices the Zuabi trade. Habbazu, here is Ereshguna my father, the head of the house of Ereshguna.”

Habbazu bowed. He had polished manners when he chose to use them. “I greet you, Ereshguna of the house of Ereshguna. Your fame is wide, as is the fame of your house. But you should be most famous for the mercy your splendid son showed a thief who intended to steal from his caravan outside Zuabu.”

“Ah.” Ereshguna’s eyebrows rose. “You are not any Zuabi thief. You are that particular Zuabi thief. I did not know your name.”

“Yes, I am that particular thief.” Habbazu bowed once more.

“When I met him outside Zuabu, I did not know his name,” Sharur said.

His grandfather’s ghost shouted in his ear, and, no doubt, in Ereshguna’s: “Are you mad, boy? Has the sun baked the wits from your head? Have the demons of idiocy crept in through your ears and built a home between them? Why do you bring a Zuabi thief into this house? Do you want to wake up in the morning and find half the walls missing?”

“It will be all right, my father,” Ereshguna murmured in the tone people often used when ghosts interrupted their conversations with fellow mortals. Habbazu looked up at the ceiling and said nothing. That tone would have been familiar to him, too. Ereshguna clapped his hands together and, raising his voice, called for bread and onions and beer.

He set out an extra, partly filled cup for the ghost of Sharur’s grandfather, surely in the hope that, having consumed the essence of the beer, the ghost would grow gay or grow sleepy and would in any case shut up. To Sharur’s relief, that hope, or at least the last part of it, was realized.

Having drunk, having eaten, Ereshguna asked Sharur, “Why has Habbazu come to Gibil to practice the trade of the Zuabut?” Why did you bring him here? underlay the words.

In a voice as light and casual as he could make it, Sharur said, “Enzuabu charged Habbazu to steal something from the temple of Engibil: a cup of baked clay that came to the god’s house from the mountains of Alashkurru.”

“Really?” Ereshguna said. Sharur nodded. So did Habbazu. Ereshguna plucked at his beard. “Isn’t that interesting?”

“I thought so, Father,” Sharur said, having been too well brought up to say something as impolite as, What did I tell you.

“Why such a fuss over one worthless cup?” Habbazu asked.

Sharur did not directly answer that question. Sharur could not directly answer that question, having sworn in the market square of Imhursag by all the gods of Kudurru that he would not. Instead, he said, “Think, thief. Would Enzuabu have sent you to Gibil to steal one worthless cup?”

“Who know what a god would do?” Habbazu returned. “Who can guess what is in a god’s mind?” But he leaned forward, his sharp-featured face alert. “Speaking as a mere man, though, I say you are likely right. And so I ask a different question: What is the true value of this cup that seems worthless?”

Again, Sharur did not answer. Again, Sharur could not answer. His father had taken no oath to speak of the power contained in the thing from the Alashkurru Mountains only to the folk of his own city. But Ereshguna said only, “We are not certain ourselves.” Sharur thought that wise; the less Habbazu heard, the less Enzuabu would learn.

Being no fool, Habbazu noticed he was getting something less than straightforward answers. “You know more than you are saying,” he remarked, although without any great rancor.

“Yes, we know more than we are saying,” Sharur agreed. “You have come into our city to steal from our god. Should we be delighted at that? Should we drink ourselves foolish and dance in the street because of it? You have not come here to help Gibil. You have not come here to help the Giblut.”

“This is so,” Habbazu said frankly. His eyes flicked from Sharur to Ereshguna and back again, as they had flicked from donkey train to smithy as he walked along the Street of Smiths. In easy, relaxed tones, he went on, “If, though, you hated me as you might hate me, you would bind my hands and feet and deliver me to the temple of Engibil trussed like a hog for the slaughter, that the god of this city might punish me for my crime.”

“Nothing prevents our doing that now,” Ereshguna said.

“That is so, my master,” Habbazu said with a polite bow. “But it is not the first thought in your minds, as it would be had I fallen into the hands of, say, the Aggasherut. They would have given me over to Eniaggasher at once, to let the goddess do her worst to me.”

“We are not Aggasherut, for which I am glad,” Sharur replied. He scratched his cheek, at the line where his beard stopped. “Shall we bargain, thief from Zuabu?”

Habbazu smiled at him. “What else have we been doing?”

Sharur inclined his head. “You speak the truth; there can be no doubt of it. The question is, how much loyalty do you owe to a god who has twice sent you to steal from Giblut and twice left you at the mercy of Giblut?”

“That is half the question,” Habbazu said. “The other half is, how much loyalty do I owe to the Giblut who twice showed me mercy?”

“Even so,” Ereshguna agreed. “Also to be remembered is the question of how much mercy the said Giblut will continue to show you.”

“Believe me, my master, this question is never far from my mind,” the thief said. “You still have not said what you would have me do. Until I learn this, how can I judge whether I am more loyal to Enzuabu or more grateful to you for your mercy?”

“That is a fair question,” Ereshguna said slowly. Sharur nodded. It was, in fact, the question of the moment. Sharur felt fairly certain that he wanted Habbazu to steal the Alash- kurri cup from Engibil’s temple if he could. Of what should happen after that, of what would happen after that, he was less sure.

He did not want Habbazu to take the cup back to Enzuabu. The god of Zuabu might keep it for himself or might return it to the great gods of the Alashkurrut. In neither case would Gibil or the Giblut gain any credit with those great gods.

If Habbazu stole the cup and promised to deliver it into the hands of Sharur and Ereshguna, could he be trusted? Or would he say he would help the Giblut who had been merciful to him and then try to escape from Gibil with the cup and take it to the god who had ordered him to steal it?

If he did deliver it into the hands of Sharur and Ereshguna, what should they do with it? Sharur knew returning it to the great gods of the Alashkurrut would be the sure course, the safe course. He did not know whether he cared about the sure course, the safe course. The notion of smashing the cup, letting the power of the gods spill out of it, held an appalling sweetness. Sharur had suffered. Why should not the gods of the Alashkurrut suffer in turn?

He glanced over to his father and saw the same questions in Ereshguna’s eyes. Habbazu saw the intently thoughtful expressions on both their faces, too. “Perhaps, my masters,” he said with surprising delicacy, “this is a matter you wish to discuss further between yourselves before telling me what you decide.”

“Perhaps,” Sharur said. “But perhaps, while we discuss this matter between ourselves, you will slide out the door and never again be seen by a Gibli who knows you for what you are.”

Habbazu bowed. “Perhaps,” he said with a broad smile.

Sharur’s grandfather’s ghost broke into the conversation: “Best thing you can do is knock the cursed Zuabi thief over the head and fling his body into a canal. No one will miss him, not in the least.”

“No, ghost of my grandfather. It would not do,” Sharur said. He said no more than that, not with Habbazu in earshot. But not only did the thief, know too much, Enzuabu also knew too much. If Habbazu vanished, the god of Zuabu was only too likely to send forth another thief, one Sharur would not be able to recognize.

“My son is right, ghost of my father,” Ereshguna said. His thoughts and Sharur’s might have been twin streams of molten bronze poured into the same mold. After a moment, he spoke directly to Sharur in a low voice: “I think we have no choice but to let the thief pay a call on the temple. He and only he knows which cup among the many in Engibil’s treasure contains the power of the Alashkurri gods. Once he has it, once we learn which it is, we go on from there.”

“Father, I think you are wise. I too think we have no other choice,” Sharur said, nodding. He turned to Habbazu. “You will pay a call on the temple. You will bring forth this Alashkurri cup. If we aid you, will you deliver it into our hands, not into the hands of Enzuabu?”

Habbazu hesitated. Had he agreed at once, with fulsome promises, Sharur would have been sure he was lying. As things were, he could not say with certainty whether the thief lied or told the truth—which, no doubt, was exactly what Habbazu wanted. He scowled, angry at himself and Habbazu both.

At last, the thief said, “I will deliver the cup into your hands, not into the hands of Enzuabu. Were it not for your forbearance, Enzuabu could not have sent me here. Were it not for your mercy, Enzuabu could not have ordered me to Gibil. I remember my debts. I repay them.”

“It is good,” Sharur said, hoping the thief remembered debts to men more than whatever he owed to the god of his city.

“Speak to me of the priests of Engibil,” Habbazu said. “Speak to me of their comings and goings. Speak to me of their prayers and offerings. Speak to me of their duties and rituals, that I may avoid them while they perform those duties and rituals.”

Now Sharur and Ereshguna hesitated in turn. In revealing, would they also be betraying? And then, before either of them could reply, Engibil spoke, his voice resounding inside Sharur’s mind as he said, You shall come at once to my temple. You shall come alone to my temple. You shall obey me.