Between the Rivers

3

Donkeys brayed and complained. They’d got used to the soft life of the stables of Tuwanas, with nothing to do but eat and sleep. Now they had packs on their backs once more, and handlers making them go places. The world seemed as unjust to them as it did to Sharur.

“We go on,” he insisted. Bowing to his will, the caravan headed west along the narrow, winding path toward the next fortresslike town of Alashkurru.

Harharu coughed. “Master merchant’s son, what you do now is brave. What you do now is bold. What you do now—is it not also foolish? You have said the god of this place told you that you would get nothing in Alashkurru. The god of this place told you that we would get nothing in Alashkurru. Would you openly fight the god?”

“Donkeymaster, I would not,” Sharur said. “I am not a fool: if all the gods of this place oppose us, we have no hope of profit here.” And I have scant hope of making Ningal my wife. But that was not Harharu’s concern. Aloud, Sharur continued, “The hand of every town in Alashkurru, though, is raised against every other. If it were not so, they would not build as they do here. Where the men are in discord, will the gods agree?”

“Ah,” Harharu said, and bowed. “Now I see what is in your mind. You think that, while we gain nothing in Tuwanas, while Huzziyas will not treat with us, while Tarsiyas speaks harshly against us, some other town, some other wanax, some other god may prove more hospitable?”

“That is what is in my mind, yes,” Sharur agreed.

“Truly you are your father’s son,” Harharu said, and now Sharur bowed to him.

As they made their slow way up to the top of the hills separating the valley Tuwanas dominated from the next one deeper into the mountain country, they met a party of eight or ten Alashkurrut coming the other way. The men of Alashkurru were armed and armored like Huzziyas’s guards. They led a few donkeys themselves, all the animals far more heavily burdened than those of Sharur’s caravan.

At Mushezib’s sharp orders, the caravan guards rushed forward to show the Alashkurrut they were ready to fight at need. Because they were ready to fight, they did not have to fight. The... bandits, Sharur supposed, did nothing but nod and tramp on past them.

Seen from the hills, the fortified town of Zalpuwas looked even more formidable than Tuwanas had. As the caravan approached the fortress, peasants came running from the fields to stare and point and jabber. They found the men of Kudurru, who wore clothes different from theirs and curled their beards, as funny as a troupe of mountebanks with trained dogs and monkeys.

Looking to sow goodwill, Sharur passed out bracelets and bangles. He also opened a small jar of date wine and let that pass from hand to hand among the peasants. Everyone who got it took a small swig before passing it on to whoever stood next to him till it was empty. Sharur had been sure it would happen so. In Gibil, someone would have been greedy and gulped down half the jar. He was sure of that, too.

In Gibil, men thought more of themselves and less of the gods than they did here. Sharur chose not to dwell on that point.

The woman who did finally empty the jar returned it to him, saying with a smile, “We have never seen a caravan-master so generous before.” Her stance and the sparkle in her eye suggested that, did he choose to be a little more generous, she might give him something in return.

“We trade with all,” Sharur declared loudly, and many of the peasants exclaimed to hear him speak in their language. “We trade great for great; we also trade small for small.” None of the gods of Alashkurru had forbidden their people from trading food and donkey fodder for his trinkets, for which he was duly grateful.

Surrounded by an excited crowd of peasants, the caravan passed through the stone huts ringing the stout walls of Zalpuwas and up to the gateway into the fortress. One of the guards said, “Is it Sharur son of Ereshguna, out of Gibil in the land between the rivers?” His voice broke in surprise, . as if he were a youth rather than a solid warrior with the first threads of gray in his beard.

“Yes, it is I, Malatyas son of Lukkas,” Sharur replied. “I pray that your mighty wanax, Ramsayas son of Radas, flourishes like the wheat in your fields. I pray that he flourishes like the apple trees in your orchards. I have many fine things to trade with him, or with the merchants who are his servants: swords and spearheads and knives and medicines and—”

He broke off. Malatyas was paying no attention to his polished sales pitch. The gate guard burst out, “Are you not come from Tuwanas, Sharur son of Ereshguna?”

“Yes,” Sharur admitted.

“And when you were there,” Malatyas persisted, “the gods did not warn you to come no farther into the mountains of Alashkurru?”

“They did not,” he said truthfully. Tarsiyas had warned him of many things, but not of that Perhaps the god and his fellows had assumed Sharur would be so downhearted, he would not continue. They were not his gods. They did not know him well. In reasonable tones, he went on, “Had the gods forbidden it, how could I be here now?”

“It is a puzzlement.” To prove how great a puzzlement it was, Malatyas scratched his bushy head. “We were certain that—”

“Since I am here, since I have goods the mighty wanax Ramsayas will surely covet, may I enter great Zalpuwas?” Sharur broke in.

As had the guards back at Tuwanas, Malatyas and his comrades plainly wanted to forbid the caravan from going into their town. As had those guards, these found themselves unable. “The mighty wanax will attend to you according to his wishes,” Malatyas said, which sounded more like warning than welcome. But he stood aside and let Sharur and his companions pass into Zalpuwas.

Being deeper in among the mountains than Tuwanas, Zalpuwas received visitors less often, and was not so well prepared to accommodate them. The couple of inns were small and dingy and dark, with sour straw in the stables. Their sole virtue, in Sharur’s eyes, was that their proprietors made no fuss about accepting beads and bangles and broken bits of silver to house the caravan.

“The Alashkurri gods may be against us,” Mushezib said, sipping beer made bitter with the flowering head of some plant that grew in the valley, “but the innkeepers aren’t so fussy.”

“Are you surprised?” Sharur answered. “When have you ever heard of a god who would bother taking notice of an innkeeper?” Mushezib’s laugh sprayed beer over the top of the table where, the two men of Kudurru sat.

But Sharur’s joke soon turned as bitter as the local beer to him, for none of the copper merchants of Zalpuwas took notice of him or of his caravan. When he went to greet men with whom he had traded on previous journeys, their doors were closed against him as if they had never heard his name. He sent word to Ramsayas son of Radas, requesting an audience. No word came back from the wanax.

Finally, in growing desperation, Sharur sent Ramsayas not word but a sword, one of the finest swords he had brought from Gibil. Where nothing else had, that did prompt the wanax to send a servant to seek out Sharur. Sharur bowed to the servant as he might have to the master, saying, “Tell the mighty wanax I am honored that he deigns to notice me.”

“Ramsayas son of Radas, mighty wanax of Zalpuwas, notices everything and everyone that passes inside these walls,” the servant answered.

“Of this I am truly glad,” Sharur said. ‘‘Does he likewise notice everything that passes outside the walls of his fortress?” '

“No, he does not claim that,” the servant said. ‘‘He is not a god, to have so wide a purview, only a servant of the gods.”

“I thought as much,” Sharur replied. “He should know that I sent him the sword in token of what he does not see: other wanakes in other valleys arming themselves and their retainers with such weapons. If he would not be left behind his neighbors, he might think on the wisdom of gaining more such blades.”

The servant’s mouth fell open. “I cannot believe other wanakes would—” He checked himself. “But who knows into what depravity men of other valleys might sink?’ ’ After coughing a couple of times, he went on, “I shall take what you say to Ramsayas son of Radas. Let his judgment, not mine, rule here.”

Ramsayas sent for Sharur the very next day.

Sharur bowed before the wanax of Zalpuwas as he might have done before Kimash the lugal of Gibil. “I am honored, Ramsayas son of Radas, that you deign to notice me,” he said as he straightened.

Ramsayas grunted. Actually, he put Sharur more in mind of Mushezib than of Kimash: he was a fighter, first, last, and always. He had a narrow, forward-thrusting face with a nose hooked like a hawk’s beak and almost as sharp. The way he leaned toward Sharur in the tall chair on which he sat emphasized that seeming inclination to attack.

“Oh, you are noticed, Sharur son of Ereshguna. Rest assured, you are noticed,” he said. His voice had a harsh rasp to it; too much shouting, perhaps, on too many raids against too many nearby valleys. “Now, what is this you say about my neighbors buying blades from you?”

“I said nothing about their buying such swords from me, mighty wanax,” Sharur replied, though that was the impression he had wanted to leave with Ramsayas’s servant. “I said they are acquiring them. Gibil is not the only city of Kudurru trading with the many valleys, the many fortresses, of Alashkurru, but our blades—and our other goods of all sorts, I make haste to add—are among the finest to be had. You have dealt with me; likewise, you have dealt with my father. You know these words I say to you are true.”

“I have dealt with you. Likewise, I have dealt with your father.” Ramsayas ran his tongue over his lips. “That was a splendid sword you sent me.”

Sharur bowed. “A wanax deserves nothing less than a splendid sword.”

“And yet, you are of Gibil.” Like Huzziyas before him, Ramsayas seemed of two minds. Part of him plainly wanted what Sharur had brought up to Alashkurru from the land between the rivers. That was the part Sharur and his father and other men of Gibil had always seen when they dealt with the Alashkurrut. The rest of Ramsayas, though, the rest was afraid.

“Yes, I am of Gibil,” Sharur agreed. “I was likewise of Gibil when last year I also came here to trade. You were glad to see me then, Ramsayas son of Radas. You were glad to trade with me. You were glad to buy from me.” He knew he sounded bitter. He had reason to be bitter. He was bitter.

Ramsayas’s fierce eyes went up to the timbers of the ceiling. Having so much fine timber, the men of Alashkurru often used it in what struck Sharur as profligate style. He had even seen, in some valleys deeper into the mountains than that of Zalpuwas, whole buildings made of wood. Ramsayas’s eyes flashed past Sharur to the far wall of the audience chamber. Sharur realized he had succeeded in embarrassing the wanax. That might bring him profit, or might bring only trouble if embarrassment turned to anger.

To his surprise, embarrassment turned to regret. “Yes, I was glad to see you then, Sharur son of Ereshguna,” Ram- sayas said with a sigh. “Yes, I was glad to trade with you. Yes, I was glad to buy from you.” Suddenly, the wanax looked more hunted than hunter. His hoarse voice dropped to a whisper. “As a man, I am still glad to see you. But I am more than merely a man. I am a man who obeys his gods. I may not trade with you. I may not buy from you. So my gods have ordered. My men obey me when we war against our neighbors. I obey the gods.”

“But we are not at war, you and I!” Sharur cried.

“No. This is so,” Ramsayas said. “But you Giblut, you are at war with the gods of Alashkurru, I fear. Do I understand rightly that you are at war with the gods of Kudurru as well?”

“No,” Sharur said. “I say ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times, no. Engibil is my god. I and all of Gibil worship him.”

“But he does not rule you,” Ramsayas said, and Sharur had no reply. “That is at the heart of why the gods of this town, the gods of this land, fear you and will not let you trade with us. They do not want the men of Alashkurru to become as the Giblut are.”

“So I have seen, though I tell you, mighty wanax, this fear is groundless,” Sharur said. “I worship my god. I fear my god.” That was certainly true. The merchant went on, “And I would not, I do not, try to seduce you away from—”

“No,” Ramsayas broke in. “I will not hear you.” To prove he would not hear Sharur, he stuck his forefingers into his ears, so that he looked rather like a three-year-old refusing to hear what its father told it.

Back in Tuwanas, Huzziyas had quivered with eagerness for a chance to get around his gods and trade with Sharur. He would have disobeyed them had they not forced obedience upon him. They had won this battle. Sharur did not think they would win the war in Tuwanas, not if Huzziyas stayed on as wanax there and was not overthrown. Huzziyas wanted, panted, to be a lugal, or whatever the Alashkurrut would call a lugal: a man who ruled in his own right. He had not been able to take this chance to do it. He would surely try again. Sharur guessed he would succeed, sooner or later.

Ramsay as—unfortunately, from Sharur’s point of view— was different. Like Huzziyas, he was a rough, strong man. Like Huzziyas, he would have liked to trade with Sharur for the fine weapons the man of Gibil had brought. But unlike Huzziyas, he was not willing to risk defying or deceiving the gods to get what he wanted. He was either content with the arrangement he and his forebears had long known or simply afraid to try to change it.

Sharur held up a hand. Ramsayas asked, “Does that mean you will speak on something else?” Sharur nodded—the wanax of Zalpuwas still had his fingers in his ears. At that nod, he removed them, wiping one against the wool of his tunic. “Very well then, Sharur son of Ereshguna: Speak on something else.”

“By your leave, mighty wanax, I should like to speak to your gods.” Sharur had no great hope anything would come of that. The same gods dwelt in Zalpuwas as in Tuwanas. But Tarsiyas did not speak with the loudest voice here; that place belonged to the goddess Fasillar. If the gods of the Alashkurru Mountains knew discord—as the men of the mountains did, as the gods of Kudurru did—perhaps Sharur would find those strong here more friendly to his cause.

Ramsayas’s eyes got a faraway look, as if he were listening to someone Sharur could not hear. That was exactly what he was doing. As Huzziyas had hack in Tuwanas, he said, “They will hear you.” And, as Huzziyas had, he added, “They will not listen.”

When Huzziyas had said that, he had appeared to be speaking for himself. Ramsayas sounded more like a man delivering the words of the gods. That was not a good omen, not so far as Sharur could see. He had had few good omens since setting out from Gibil. He hardly even missed them anymore.

Had the gods been besieged in their temple, in Zalpuwas, they could have held it even longer than was so for their citadel back in Tuwanas. Sharur felt, and was no doubt meant to feel, like nothing so much as a tiny insect as he walked into the great stone pile. The weight of the stonework, and of the power indwelling there, made him want to shrink down into himself, making himself of even less account when measured against the gods of Alashkurru.

Fasillar, the Alashkurri goddess of birth, was depicted enormously pregnant. By Sharur’s standards, the statue was earnest but clumsy work; it might have been carved by the brother of the man who had shaped Tarsiyas’s image back in Tuwanas. Ninshubur, the goddess of birth in Kudurru, was also the goddess of new ideas. Sharur did not think that was so for Fasillar, as best he could tell, the Alashkurri gods actively discouraged new ideas.

Ramsayas stretched himself out at full length on the ground before the cult image of Fasillar. Sharur bowed low before it. He respected the gods of the Alashkurru Mountains (more accurately, he respected the power of the gods of the Alashkurru Mountains), but they were not his gods.

The goddess spoke: “Whom do you bring before me, Ramsayas son of Radas? Why do you bring him before me?” Did Sharur imagine it, or was that last question full of ominous overtones?

“Mistress of the mysteries of birth, provider of warriors, great goddess of this town, great goddess of this land ...” After the honorifics, the wanax of Zalpuwas took a deep breath so he could come to the point: “I bring before you Sharur son of Ereshguna, a foreign man, a man of the distant land between the rivers, a man of the town of Gibil.” He did not raise his head as he spoke, not once. Indeed, he reckoned himself far more a servant of the gods than did Huzziyas of Tuwanas.

Sharur wished the wanax had not mentioned Gibil. Faillar surely knew whence he came, but reminding her of it would do his cause no good. He bowed again, saying, “I greet you, great goddess of this town. I greet you, great goddess of this land.”

Fasillar’s stone eyes swung in their sockets till they bore on Sharur. “You are the foreign man who spoke with Tarsiyas my cousin in the town of Tuwanas.”

“I am that man, great goddess of this town, great goddess of this land,” Sharur acknowledged.

“Tarsiyas my cousin made it plain to you we do not want what the men of Gibil have to trade,” Fasillar said. “Tarsiyas my cousin made it plain to you that we do not want the men of Alashkurru to take what the men of Gibil have to trade. Tarsiyas my cousin having made that plain to you, why did you not leave this land? Why did you not return to Gibil? Why did you go deeper into these mountains, into this land, to disturb another town, to disturb Zalpuwas?”

“Great goddess of this town, great goddess of this land ...” As he spoke the honorifics, Sharur used the time they gave him to gather his own thoughts. “I understood from Tarsiyas your cousin, great god of that town, great god of this land, that he rejected dealings for the things of Gibil, dealings with the men of Gibil.” He licked his lips. “I did not understand him to mean all the towns of this land, all the gods of this land, rejected my city and the men of my city.”

Fasillar’s stone eyes blazed. The nipples of her swollen stone breasts sprang out and pressed against the rich wool wrappings in which the folk of Zalpuwas had decked her. “You knew what Tarsiyas my cousin told you, Sharur son of Ereshguna. You knew what Tarsiyas my cousin meant, man of Gibil. In your heart, you chose to misunderstand, to twist the words of Tarsiyas my cousin to a shape more pleasing to you. That you do this, that you can do this, shows why all the gods of Alashkurru hate you.”

Still down on his belly, Ramsayas moaned. Again, his was a different kind of fright from Huzziyas’s. The wanax of Tuwanas had been frightened because Sharur had got him in trouble with his gods. The wanax of Zalpuwas was frightened because Sharur had got himself in trouble with the Alashkurri gods. Huzziyas wanted to be out from under them, but could not escape. Ramsayas was content down to the bottom of his spirit to remain their servant.

Their anger frightened Sharur, too, for it meant he would not return to Gibil with his donkeys’ packs nicely burdened with copper and copper ore. It meant he would not return to Gibil with rare and beautiful things for Kimash the lugal to set on Engibil’s altar, which might in turn make Engibil angry at Kimash and at the rest of the men of Gibil.

And it meant he would not return to Gibil with Ningal’s bride-price. She would have to remain in the house of Dimgalabzu the smith, her father. Perhaps Dimgalabzu would offer her to someone else, someone who had not been so rash as to pledge a bride-price from profit and then come home without it. Ereshguna would not be happy to see this marriage alliance fail, for he wanted his family joined to Dimgalabzu’s. Sharur would not be happy to see this marriage alliance fail, for he wanted himself joined to Ningal.

He said, “Great goddess of this town, great goddess of this land, I will appease you and the other gods of this town, the other gods of this land, with any contrition-offering you ask of me, short of my life or the lives of my countrymen. I want no more from you than to trade my wares for the wares of this land and to return to my city, to return to my god, in peace.”

“No,” Fasillar said, and Ramsayas moaned again at that blunt rejection. The goddess went on, “A contrition-offering depends upon true contrition. You, man of Gibil, you would make the offering and speak the words of contrition with your mouth, while your heart laughed within you. For the gods of this town, for the gods of this land, to accept such an offering would be for us to eat of poisoned fruit. Better it were never made.”

Sharur bit his lip. Fasillar had indeed seen what was in his mind: he would have made the offering as part of the price of doing business in the Alashkurru Mountains, not because he repented of being what he was. lowing his head before the superior power he could not help but recognize, he asked, “What am I to do, then, great goddess of this town, great goddess of this land?”

“You have but one thing to do.” Fasillar’s voice was implacable. “Leave this land. Return to Zalpuwas no more.”

“Great goddess of this town, great goddess of this land, I obey.” Sharur bowed his head again. Even as he spoke, though, he saw how he might bend the Alashkurri goddess’s words to his own purpose.

As the caravan pressed deeper in among the Alashkurru Mountains, Harharu asked, “Are you sure you know what course you take, master merchant’s son, the goddess having told you to quit this land?”

“Donkeymaster, I obey Fasillar.” Sharur’s smile was crooked. “We quit the land of Zalpuwas, do we not? When we leave these mountains, we shall not leave them through the land of Zalpuwas, but by another route.”

Mushezib laughed. “Thus did I obey my mother after I got too big for my father to beat me.” The guard captain eyed Sharur. “Are you too big for these gods to beat you, master merchant’s son?”

“Not a chance of it,” Sharur answered. “If the gods— any gods—take it into their minds to beat a man, they will beat him. My hope is that they will not take it into their minds to do any such thing, that I can make myself too small to draw their notice.”

That satisfied Mushezib. It did not satisfy Harharu, who said, “Master merchant’s son, on what do you pin this hope? Slice words as you will, the goddess told you to quit this land, and you press deeper into it. Before long, we shall halt in another valley. Before long, you shall present yourself before another wanax’s chief merchant, or more likely before another wanax himself. Before long, you shall be brought into the presencex of the Alashkurri gods. How can you fail to draw their notice?”

“Before long, we shall halt in another valley,” Sharur agreed. “I know the valley in which we shall halt: the valley of Parsuhandas. The trading in the valley of Parsuhandas has long been good for Gibil. But I shall not present myself before Wassukhamnis, the chief merchant of the valley of Parsuhandas. I shall not present myself before Yaddiyas, the mighty wanax of the valley of Parsuhandas. Most especially, I shall not be brought into the presence of the Alashkurri gods in the valley of Parsuhandas. I shall not draw their notice.”

“Ah. Now I understand.” Mushezib boomed laughter. “You will trade swords and spearheads and good date wine to the peasants of the valley of Parsuhandas, and we will go back to Gibil with our donkeys piled high with cucumbers.” He laughed again.

“The peasants of the valley of Parsuhandas are Alashkurrut like any other Alashkurrut,” Sharur said. “No doubt, could they pay for them, they would be glad to have fine swords of bronze, and fine spearheads of bronze as well. Could he pay for it, any man would be glad to drink good date wine. But we have in Gibil cucumbers aplenty. I would sooner bring back to our city copper and copper ore. And this, if matters go as I hope, I shall do.”

Harharu’s frown remained. “And you will not see Wassukhamnis, chief merchant of the valley of Parsuhandas? And you will not see Yaddiyas, mighty wanax of the valley of Parsuhandas? Master merchant’s son, what will you do?”

“I shall present myself before Abzuwas son of Ahhiyawas,” Sharur replied.

Harharu considered that for as long as a donkey took to walk five paces. Then the donkeymaster bowed so deeply to Sharur, his hat fell off his head.

Rain spattered down from a cloudy sky as the caravan entered the valley of Parsuhandas. By that time, guards and donkey handlers had stopped exclaiming in dismay at summer rain, and most of them had stopped making signs and

charms against the evil omens to be drawn from such a phenomenon. For his part, Sharur took the evil weather as a good omen: rain made it more difficult for the gods of the Alashkurru Mountains to peer down and see what he was about.

Stronger than both Tuwanas and Zalpuwas was the fortress town of Parsuhandas, which seemed to have sprung from the stony ground rather than being built. The valley of Parsuhandas was narrow and steep, the fields of the valley small and cramped. Nevertheless, Parsuhandas prospered.

Parsuhandas prospered because many black-mouthed holes had been dug into the sides of the valley, most often where it was steepest. Men went into those holes and grubbed at the ground with copper picks and with pry bars made from branches and shod, sometimes, with copper, and with shovels more often of bone and wood than of copper and wood. Not many men went down into the mines, for the mountains of Alashkurru were like any other land in that their peasants could not raise food enough to support more than a few who were not peasants. But miners there were, who brought copper ore and, every now and again, masses of native copper up from the darkness into the light of day.

Near one of those mines, the largest in the valley of Parsuhandas, dwelt Abzuwas son of Ahhiyawas. A great pillar of smoke rose from his stone home, guiding Sharur and the caravan thither. Yet that home was not afire. Like so many in Gibil, it was also Abzuwas’s place of business, and he the busiest and most clever smith in the valley of Parsuhandas and, probably, in all the Alashkurru Mountains.

As if Abzuwas had been a man of Kudurru, he wore only sandals and a linen kilt. He did it not to ape the men from the land between the rivers, but because he-spent so much time tending his forges, and would have steamed in his own wrappings had he donned the usual Alashkurri tunic.

He stood outside the stone building when Sharur led the donkey train up to him: outside and, too impatient to wait for the rain to do the job, pouring a big jar of water over his head and hairy torso, both to clean himself and to cool his body after some long stretch of sweltering work. “I greet you, Abzuwas son of Ahhiyawas, master of metal,” Sharur called out as he approached.

Abzuwas shook himself like a wet dog. Water sprayed out from his hair and beard. He rubbed at his eyes to get the water out of them, too. “Well, well,” he said, his voice deep and rolling like the voice of a big drum. “Well, well. I greet you, Sharur son of Ereshguna, master merchant’s son. For a man from the land of Kudurru, a man with the knowledge of bronze, to call me a master of metal is praise indeed. It’s more praise than I deserve, but a man fool enough to turn down praise would also be fool enough to turn down a woman if she offered him her body, and, whatever kind of fool I may be, I am not such a fool as that. Welcome, Sharur son of Ereshguna, welcome!”

He walked forward to enfold Sharur in a wet, smelly embrace. No matter how wet and smelly it was, Sharur was glad to have the hug. Since he had come into the Alashkurru Mountains, Abzuwas was the first person to have fully returned his greeting. Since he had come into the Alashkurru Mountains, this place was the first place he had felt welcome.

As he freed himself from Abzuwas’s massive arms, he realized that was literally true. Here by the smithy, he did not feel in the back of his mind the unfriendly presence of the gods of the Alashkurrut. Metal had power, and gave a man power—power that was not, or was not yet, the power of any god.

“So,” Abzuwas boomed. “So! I had not heard you were in the fortress of Parsuhandas. I had not heard you were treating with Yaddiyas, the mighty wanax of Parsuhandas. I had not heard Yaddiyas, the mighty wanax of Parsuhandas, had sent you to me.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “But so what? When I get to working, when the metal pours bright into the mold, I do not hear anything, even things many men think they tell me.”

“Abzuwas, my friend, I will not lie to you,” Sharur said. “I was not in the fortress of Parsuhandas. I was not treating with Yaddiyas. Yaddiyas has not sent me to you.”

“Well, well,” Abzuwas said again, in a different tone of voice. “So you came straight to me, did you? Why did you come straight to me? Why did you not go into the fortress of Parsuhandas? Why did you not treat with Yaddiyas, the mighty wanax of Parsuhandas?”

“I came straight to you because I felt sure you would trade with me,” Sharur replied, sounding more confident than he felt. “I did not go into the fortress of Parsuhandas, I did not treat with the mighty wanax Yaddiyas, because I did not think he would trade with me.”

Abzuwas frowned. “And why is that, Sharur son of Ereshguna? The mighty wanax Yaddiyas has always been glad to gain your swords. The mighty wanax Yaddiyas has always been glad to gain your other goods. I can give you only copper and copper ore in trade. Copper and copper ore are all I have. The mighty wanax Yaddiyas has many different things. He can give you many different things in trade.”

“Copper and copper ore will do nicely,” Sharur said. “They are what draws the men of Kudurru to the Alashkurru Mountains.”

“You did not answer my question.” Abzuwas folded his arms across his chest and looked straight at Sharur. “Why did you come to me, and not go into the fortress? Why would you treat with me, and not with the mighty wanax?”

“For no reason I can see,” Sharur said, almost truthfully, “your Alashkurri gods are angry at me. They have forbidden the wanakes of this land from trading with me. They have forbidden the merchants of this land from trading with me. So far as I know, they have not forbidden the smiths of this land from trading with me!”

“Ah, the gods.” Abzuwas spoke in some surprise. “Yes, the gods.” Sure enough, he needed to be reminded of them, just as a smith in Gibil might go for days without worrying about the will of Engibil. The gods were stronger than he, yes, but they did not much impinge on what he did in his daily labors. “They are angry at you, you say?”

Reluctantly, Sharur nodded. Abzuwas asked, “Why should they not be angry at me, then, if I give you copper and copper ore in trade for your goods? Why should they not be angry at me if, of a sudden, I trade Gibli swords and wine and cloth and whatever else you may have?”

“Because you are a smith,” Sharur answered. “Because you have your own power. Because here in this place I do not feel the weight of the Alashkurri gods on my shoulders.” Because you are more like a man of Gibil than any other Alashkurri I know, even Huzziyas the wanax who would be a lugal if only the gods here would let him. But Sharur did not say that aloud, not knowing how Abzuwas would take it.

The smith understood it even if he did not say it. “I cannot take this chance, Sharur son of Ereshguna. You and I, we are not so much alike as you would think.”

“But we are,” Sharur insisted. “We both have more freedom from the gods than is common here in your mountains or in the land between the rivers.”

“No.” Abzuwas shook his head. “You are nearly right, but you are not right. I have freedom under the gods. I do not have freedom from the gods. I do not desire freedom from the gods.”

“It amounts to the same thing in the end,” Sharur said. But Abzuwas shook his head again, sadly. “I have seen you Giblut. Whether the gods give or not, you snatch. Such was never my way. I am content. Are you?”

“Content?” Sharur had, so far as he was able, been holding in his temper in the presence of the Alashkurrut and their gods. Now, for the first time since he’d entered the mountains, it escaped him altogether. “Content?” His voice rose to a shout. “No, I am not content! I have fine goods to trade here, and no one will trade with me. I am going to face a loss, not a profit, because no one here will trade with me. Your gods have the foolish notion—your gods have the stupid notion—I have some sort of a disease of the spirit, and that I am liable to give it to you, and so they will let no one trade with me. I shall not have the bride-price for the woman I want, the woman who wants me, because no one will trade with me. And you ask if I am content? Would you be content, standing where I stand?”

He was dimly aware of the donkey handlers and caravan guards staring at him while he raged. What gossip they would have when they got back to Gibil! Most of his attention, though, centered on Abzuwas the smith, who, he had thought, was more like a Gibli than any other man of Alashkurru.

“If the gods made it plain to me they did not want me to trade, I would not trade,” Abzuwas answered. “The gods have made it plain to me they do not want me to trade, and I will not trade. Whether they are right, whether they are wrong, they are the gods. They are too strong to fight. I will not fight them.”

He was like a Gibli: he had come so far out from under the rule of his gods that he could see they might be wrong. And he was not like a Gibli: he accepted their rule nonetheless, on account of their strength, and did not seek to work around that strength with such strength as he and his fellow men possessed. Sharur did not know what to make of him, how to reckon him.

“What should I do?” Sharur asked the question at least as much of himself as of Abzuwas.

Abzuwas answered it nonetheless: “Go home to Gibil, Sharur son of Ereshguna. You cannot profit on every journey. In your heart, you must know this is so. If you do not earn the woman’s bride-price here, perhaps you will find another way of getting it. You Giblut are clever in such things, as in so many others.”

I cannot, not in this, Sharur thought. Kilt he had not fully shared his reasons for concern even with bis own father, even with Ningal his intended, and he would not take them up with a foreign smith, even with a sympathetic foreign smith.

Harharu came up to him. The donkeymaster chose his words with great and obvious care: “Master merchant’s son, if Abzuwas son of Ahhiyawas will not trade with us, no Alashkurri will trade with us. Is this the truth, or is it a lie?”

“It is the truth,” Sharur said dully.

“If none of the Alashkurrut will trade with us, do we not waste your substance, do we not waste your father’s substance, by persisting in this land where the gods hate us and the men obey the gods?”

“We do,” Sharur admitted, dully still. He let out a long sigh. “I understand your words, donkeymaster, however much my heart rebels within me at yielding to them. But you are right. Abzuwas is right, or partly right. We have failed here. We shall go home to Gibil.” He pretended not to hear the muffled cheers that rose from his followers.

The caravan had no trouble leaving the mountains. The Alashkurrut were willing enough to trade food for Sharur’s trinkets, even if they would engage in no commerce that meant anything. No bands of raiders, no wanax’s guardsmen (these two groups sometimes being difficult—sometimes being impossible—to distinguish one from the other) beset him or tried to rob him of the swords and wine and medicines for which the Alashkurri great men refused to bargain.

That puzzled Sharur as much as it relieved him. The Alashkurrut sometimes plundered caravans for the sport of it, even when their gods were not ill-inclined toward the foreign merchants in their land. If their gods hated him so, if their gods hated all men of Gibil so, why not seek to wipe him from the face of the earth?

He pondered that as day followed day and bandits continued to stay far away from his donkeys. Nor was he the only one pondering it. As the caravan encamped one evening, Mushezib came up to him and said, “Why are they leaving us alone, master merchant’s son?” He sounded aggrieved at losing the chance to fight.

By then Sharur had devised an answer that, if not provably true like a question of arithmetic, at least helped him toward understanding this strange part of the world. “Guard captain, we know the gods here hate us.”

Mushezib nodded emphatically. “All the more reason for wanting to be rid of us by hook or by crook, wouldn’t you say?” ^W

“They want to be rid of us, yes,” Sharur said, “but I think they fear us too much to try to slay us or despoil us. Perhaps they are afraid of what our ghosts might do if we were murdered in this country. Perhaps they are afraid of what the living men of Gibil might do if we were murdered in this country. So long as we are willing to leave their land, they seem willing to let us leave in peace.”

“Gibil is a long way off, and is only one city,” Mushezib said. “How could the living men of Gibil hope to avenge us against Alashkurri bandits?”

“Against Alashkurri bandits, I do not think they could hope to avenge us,” Sharur said. “Against Alashkurri gods, I think they might. The gods of Alashkurru fear the men of Alashkurru will slip out of their hands, as we Giblut have to some degree slipped out of the hands of Engibil.” He spoke softly as he made to his countryman the admission he would not make to the Imhursagut or Alashkurrut.

“How does that help the living men of Gibil avenge—?” Mushezib held up a hand. “Wait. I think I see. If many Giblut came here—”

Sharur nodded. “Just so, guard captain. Trading with us, talking with us, has already made many Alashkurrut much more like us than they were even a generation ago. If enough Giblut came and traded and talked, sooner or later a wanax would do what Huzziyas could not do, and would make himself into a lugal, a ruler in his own right. My guess is, the gods of the Alashkurrut believe that, if all the men of Gibil leave this land, if none has any reason to come here, Alashkurru shall remain forever as it has always been.”

Mushezib weighed that, then grunted. “Do you think they’re right?”

“What an interesting question,” Sharur said, and did not answer it. He thought the Alashkurri gods likely—almost certainly—wrong, but was not so rash as to say so where they could hear. “Shall we drink some beer, Mushezib?”

“That’s a good idea, master merchant’s son.” Mushezib always thought drinking some beer a good idea.

Two days later, in the valley dominated by the fortress-town of Danauwiyas, to the north of the valley of Zalpuwas (through which Sharur dared not go, not now), the caravan met that of the men of Imhursag, which it had left in the dust long before reaching the Alashkurru Mountains.

Sharur recognized the Imhursagut before they figured out who he was. He would have been angry at himself had it been the other way round. If a man from Gibil, a man who thought for himself, was not more alert than the Imhursagut, drunk with their god as they got drunk with wine, what point to being a Gibli?

Then he bethought himself that the caravan from Imhursag would have made a fine profit here in the mountains. He knew in his heart he would have made more even on the same shoddy Imhursaggi goods—if, that is, any of the Alashkurrut would have consented to deal with him. Since the Alashkurrut, as he had seen to his sorrow, would not deal with him under any circumstances ... what point to being a man of Gibil now?

“Pride.” Finding the answer, he spoke it aloud, and then addressed his companions: “Show pride, one and all. Do not let the Imhursagut know we are downhearted; do not act like slaves before them. Follow my lead in all I do. If the Imhursagut think we have done well here, it will confuse them. If they think we have made a profit here, it will confuse their god.”

Where nothing else might have served, that raised the caravan crew’s spirits. Putting one over on Enimhursag was sweeter to the Giblut than dates candied in honey, more satisfying than a great bowl of stewed lamb and lentils.

And so, by the time the men of Imhursag realized the men and donkeys approaching them came from the city that was their hated rival, by the time they scurried around and readied themselves for a fight that might or might not come—by that time, Sharur and the caravan guards and the donkey handlers showed new life in their step, new cheer on their faces. Striding out ahead of them, Sharur marched confidently toward the Imhursaggi caravan.

An Imhursaggi came toward him, too: the same man with whom he had spoken on the road to Alashkurru. “Gibil and Imhursag are not at war. Engibil and Enimhursag are not at war,” Sharur said. “Let us by in peace. We shall let you by in peace. We are homeward-bound.”

The Imhursaggi cocked his head to one side, as if listening. Listening he was, to no voice Sharur could hear, to no voice Sharur cared to hear. Having learned the will of his god, he answered, “We shall let you go in peace. Go home to your city, Gibli; go home with your tail between your legs.”

“When I get home to Gibil, I shall thrust my tail between the legs of my Imhursaggi slave woman,” Sharur retorted. “Why do you mock me? Why do you insult me? May you make as much profit on your journey as I have made on mine.”

He knew how he meant that. He did not think the man of Imhursag would. He did not think Enimhursag would, either, when the god heard the words through the man’s ears. He proved right on both counts. Angrily, the Imhursaggi said, “Profit? How can you have made a profit?”

“Why do you ask? Don’t you know how yourself?” Sharur’s smile was easy, lazy, happy, as if he had just had the Imhursaggi slave. He knew how much effort holding that smile on his face required. By holding it there, he hoped to keep the man of Imhursag from seeing that effort.

And he succeeded. Swarthy though the Imhursaggi merchant was, he flushed angrily. “You cannot have made a profit in the Alashkurru Mountains!” he shouted. “You cannot! The gods of this country hate you. They know what Giblut are. They know what Giblut do.”

Sharur’s smile only got wider. With a shrug, he answered, “Enimhursag hates the men of Gibil, but we trade all through Kudurru, and make good profits. We do not trade with Enimhursag. We trade with men. We do not trade with the gods of this country, either. We trade with men.”

From dark and ruddy, the merchant of Imhursag went pale. He understood what Sharur was saying. Enimhursag understood what Sharur was saying, too. “You have made the Alashkurrut into Giblut—men who cheat the gods,” the merchant gasped.

“They will tell you otherwise,” Sharur said. “They will insist it is not so. They will deny they ever traded with me. They will sound as if you should believe them. But how will you know for certain whether they speak the truth?”

“You are worse than a demon of the desert places,” the Imhursaggi said, horror in his eyes—a horror that was a window into a place deeper and darker than the bottom of his own spirit, a window into all the fears Enimhursag felt. Putting the god of Imhursag in fear felt almost as good as making a profit would have done. Almost.

“We shall go by now,” Sharur said. “We shall go by in peace now. I told you once and now I tell you twice, man of Imhursag: may you profit here as I have profited here.” He wondered if Enimhursag would change his mind and order the Imhursagut to attack his men rather than letting them pass in peace. The merchant with whom he spoke evidently wondered the same thing, for he stood poised, his eyes far away, awaiting any orders his god might give. No orders came. The merchant slumped, ever so slightly. “We shall let you go by in peace. Go home to your city.”

As warily as they had west of the Yarmuk, the caravan from Gibil and that from Imhursag sidled past each other. The Imhursagut scowled frightful scowls at Sharur and his companions. At his command, his own guards and donkey handlers did their best to pretend the caravan crew from the other city did not exist. Not a word was said on either side.

Continuing east, back toward Kudurru, back toward Gibil, Sharur looked over his shoulder. Looking at him was the Imhursaggi merchant who led the other caravan. When their eyes met, the man of Imhursag flinched, as if from a blow. Quickly, he turned his gaze in another direction.

Sharur told his own caravan crew how he had confused both the Imhursaggi merchant and Enimhursag. His fellow Giblut laughed and cheered and clapped him on the back. Harharu said, “The only way the tale could be better, master merchant’s son, would be for our donkeys in truth to be heavily laden with copper and ore and the other goods of Alashkurru.”

“If the Alashkurrut were like us—if they truly were their own men first and took care of their gods to keep them quiet—we would be heavily laden with copper and ore and the other goods of Alashkurru,” Sharur said, from out of a strange place halfway between frustrated fury and amusement. “But they are not, worse luck. And so Enimhursag wins this game.” And so I lose it. That was even more to the point.

“But Enimhursag, stupid ugly blind fool of a god that he is, doesn’t even know he’s won,” Mushezib said with a scornful laugh. “He’s back there in his temple in Imhursag, hiding under the throne with his thumb in his mouth.”

Such cheerful blasphemy, aimed at a god Sharur despised above all others, was bracing as a draught of strong wine. And the guard captain was likely to be right; Enimhursag’s followers had been well and truly fooled, which meant, at such a remove from his own land, that their god was also almost sure to be well and truly fooled. That gave Sharur some consolation: some, but not enough.

As the caravan wound its way out of the mountains of Alashkurru toward the lower, flatter land to the east, eerie laughter floated down out of the sky. Sharur stared this way and that, but could not spy the demon.' Nevertheless, he shook his fist and cried out, “I curse you, Illuyankas demon of this land, by your name I curse you for mocking me. May you eat the bread of death for mocking me, Illuyankas demon of this land; may you drink the beer of dying. May your face turn pale, like a cut-down tamarisk, Illuyankas demon of this land; may your lips turn dark, like a bruised reed. May the gods smite you with the might of their land. I curse you, Illuyankas demon of this land, by your name I curse you for mocking me.”

Only silence after that, silence and the sound of the breeze sighing through saplings. “That is a strong curse, master merchant’s son,” Harharu said, “a strong curse, but one you shaped with care.”

Sharur nodded. “Yes. Not having seen Illuyankas, I cannot be certain that demon is the one whose laughter we heard. I would not lay a curse on a demon for something of which that demon is innocent. If Illuyankas was not the demon mocking us, the curse will not bite.”

As always, the herders who roamed the land beyond the reach of life-giving water from the Yarmuk and its lesser tributaries eyed the caravan as a hawk overhead eyed a shape on the ground, wondering whether it was a hare that would be easy to kill or a fox that would fight back. The guards carried their shields and their weapons and wore their helmets, suggesting that any of the wanderers who might attack would pay dearly.

The lean, fierce herders were persuaded. When they approached Sharur’s donkey train, it was to trade sheep and cattle for trinkets. “You will have nothing better for us than the scraps of your goods, not coming east from out of the mountains,” one of their leathery chieftains said. “It is always thus—the men of Kudurru gain more for their goods in the mountains than here, and more for the goods of the mountains in Kudurru than here. This leaves us with little but what we take for ourselves.” His eyes were bright and fierce and avid.

“If you try to rob us, what you will take for yourself and your kinsmen are wounds and sorrow,” Sharur said. Mushezib strutted by then, not quite by chance, looking as if even a hundred herdsmen might not be able to pull him down.

“It could be done,” the chieftain said. Sharur gestured with one hand, casually, as if to answer, Well, what if it could? The chieftain sighed. “As you say, it would cost us dear. Strange how those who have so much fight so hard to keep those who have little from getting any more.”

“As strange how those who have little think they deserve more without working for it,” Sharur returned. The herder showed his teeth, as a desert fox might have done. Sharur kept his voice elaborately calm: “By the will of the gods, we have with us a few finer things than usual. Would you see them?”

“Only if it pleases you to show them,” the herder replied, sounding as indifferent as Sharur. That was how the game went. “If it would be too much bother, you need not trouble yourself.”

“They might amuse you,” Sharur said, and the chieftain did not say no. Sharur set out before him date wine and medicine and linen cloth—the herders did more than his own people with wool. He also set out a few, a very few, swords and knives, as if to suggest that the Alashkurrut had acquired the rest.

“True, these are not things traders show us every day,” the herder chieftain said. He looked down at the ground to » disguise the eager glow in his eyes. But, tent-dwelling nomad though he was, he was neither a blind man nor a fool. “All these things come from the land between the rivers. Nothing comes from the high country.” He pointed first east, then west. “By the will of the gods, you say, you have these things to show us. Was it the will of the gods that you not trade in the mountains?”

The herders did not know gods well, or, to put it another way, the gods hardly found the herders worth noticing. The chieftain smiled as he asked the question. But the smile disappeared when, in a, stony voice, Sharur replied, “Yes, that was the will of the gods.”

“Ah.” The herder plucked at his beard. He had dyed red streaks in it with henna. Turning away from Sharur, he entered into a whispered colloquy with some of his own people. When he turned back, his face was troubled. Slowly, he said, “It may be that you are not lucky men. It may be that any who trade with you will not be lucky men. They are fine goods.” He sighed regretfully. “They are fine goods, but, as with robbing you of them, they might cost us dear.”

He and the herders he led vanished into the night, a few at a time, until they were all gone. Mushezib said, “Well, we won’t need to worry so much about the cursed thieves this time through, anyhow. They’re as bad as the Zuabut, sometimes.”

That was the best face anyone could put on it. Sharur wrapped up the weapons and nostrums an& wine and” cloth the herders had not wanted. “I shall return to Gibil in failure,” he said. “Better I should not return at all.”

“Your father will not say this, master merchant’s son,” Harharu answered. “Your mother will not say this. Your kinsfolk will not say this. They would sooner greet you in the flesh than hear your ghost whine in their ears. In the flesh, you may yet redeem yourself, and so, no doubt, you shall.”

Harharu might not have had any doubts. Sharur was full of them. The donkeymaster had meant the words kindly, though, and so Sharur inclined his head to him and said nothing more than, “Well, we shall go on.” He nodded. That sounded right. Seeing him push the brief moment of self-pity behind himself, Harharu nodded, too.

The morning sun shone off the Yarmuk River, turning its muddy water to molten silver. As he had done on the westbound journey, Sharur brought his caravan to the Yarmuk at the little-used ford north of the city of Aggasher rather than to the usual crossing point by the city. He did not know what Eniaggasher, the goddess ruling the city, might do to him and his men, and he was not anxious to learn.

When he drew near the river, a frog leapt in from the nearby mudflat. Ripples ruffled the silver surface, then subsided. All was calm once more. Sharur brought a bracelet to the water’s edge and said, “For thee, Eniyarmuk, to adorn thyself and make thyself more beautiful.” He tossed the sacrifice into the river.

Ripples spread from the bracelet, as they had when the frog leaped into the river. Unlike those ripples, these did not subside. They grew larger instead. More appeared, more and more and more, till the surface of the Yarmuk might have been the sea in a storm. But it was not the sea, and no storm roiled it.

Something flew out of the river to land at the feet of Sharur, who had jumped back away from the water’s edge when the unnatural tumult started. Now, as it eased, he stooped and picked up the bracelet he had offered to the river goddess.

“Eniyarmuk has rejected the sacrifice!” he exclaimed, blank astonishment in his voice. “What do we do now?”

“One thing we don’t do, I reckon,” Agum the caravan guard said: “I don’t reckon we try and cross the river right now.”

Harharu said, “I don’t know how we are to return to Gibil without crossing the Yarmuk River.” He stared at the stream. “I have never heard of Eniyarmuk rejecting a crossing-offering, never in all my days.”

“Can we cross anyway?” Mushezib asked.

“I wouldn’t care to try it,” Sharur said. He thought of the storm the goddess had raised in the river, and of what such a storm—or a greater storm—would do to the men and donkeys of the caravan. “If the goddess is angry, we would be no more than toys in her hands.”

Mushezib, a true man of Gibil, growled, “The goddess is a stupid bitch.” But even he realized he had gone too far, for a moment later he hastily added, “But we can’t fight her, that’s certain sure. No man can take a goddess by force.”

“There you speak truth,” Sharur agreed. He stood on the riverbank and pondered.

“Even a woman taken by force isn’t all that much fun,” Mushezib went on, more to himself than to anyone else. “They scream and they kick and they wail and they try and bite—more trouble than they’re worth, if you ask me.” He came out of his reverie when Sharur darted back toward one of the donkeys. “What are you doing, master merchant’s son?”

“Taking a woman by force is more trouble than it’s worth, as you say,” Sharur replied. “Sometimes, though, if you go with her to a tavern and buy her wine, she will smile and be happy, and you have no need to take her by force.” He carried a sloshing jar down to the bank of the Yarmuk.

Using the point of his knife, he chipped pitch away from the stopper until he could pry it up. The rich sweetness of fermented dates filled his nostrils. He walked upstream from the ford, perhaps half a bowshot, then bowed low and, with great ceremony, poured the wine into the water. That done, he tossed a stick into the river and followed it back until it had drifted past the place where the caravan waited to cross.

When it was past the ford, he waved men and donkeys forward, saying, “Eniyarmuk has now drunk ajar of wine. If she is not too sozzled to take notice of a few mortal men, she never will be.” He slipped out of his own kilt and sandals and led the first donkey into the river.

He knew what the goddess could do if she was not too sozzled to take notice of a few mortal men. His fear grew with every step, for he believed she would do it if she was not too sozzled to take notice of him. Those thoughts did not fill his mind alone, either. Harharu and Mushezib called out to their men with quiet urgency, seeking ever greater speed. The donkey handlers and guards would have pressed ahead without those admonitions; with them, they pressed harder. Even the donkeys acted less balky than usual.

Sharur came up onto the dry land—well, the muddy land—of the eastern bank of the Yarmuk. A great sigh of relief gusted from his lungs. He hauled on the lead line to bring the first donkey out of the water. The others, and the rest of the caravan crew, followed in rapid succession.

“Come on,” Sharur told them. “We’re not done yet. Let’s get away from the river, as far as we can, before we get into our clothes and set everything to rights.”

“Good thinking, master merchant’s son,” Mushezib said. “Don’t want to be close by when the river goddess sobers up, no I don’t. You get a woman drunk and have your way with her, she’s liable to be angry in the morning, yes she is.”

“Just so,” Sharur agreed. Naked still, he pushed the pace, begrudging the time he would need to pause and belt on his kilt. The sun quickly dried the Yarmuk’s water on his body. The drier; the better, he thought: less lingering contact between himself and Eniyarmuk’s domain.

He chanced to be looking back over his shoulder when the river goddess realized he had muddled her wits and deceived her. The surface of the Yarmuk suddenly boiled and frothed. Water leapt into the air, then splashed down. In unmistakable fury, the river began to pursue the caravan. Men and donkeys cried out in alarm together and hurried eastward as fast as they could go.

So long as the questing tentacle of river remained in the bed the Yarmuk occupied during full flood, it came on after them more swiftly than their best pace. Beyond the riverbed, though, the fierce flow faltered: outside her domain, Eniyarmuk’s power was much diminished. At last, sullenly, the waters drew back toward their proper channel.

Panting, sweating, Sharur held up a hand. “We have escaped the anger of the river goddess,” he said. “Let us give thanks and rejoice, hymning Engibil’s praises.”

The hymn rang out, loud and triumphant. Only when it was through, only after he had covered his nakedness, did Sharur think to wonder about the propriety of praising one god for having escaped (no, for having beaten, the defiant part of his mind thought, though he dared not say that aloud) another.

“Master merchant’s son, your cleverness let us get by no small problem there,” Harharu said. “Had we not got past Eniyarmuk, we might have had to go down to the regular ford, and then we would have had to go under the eye of Eniaggasher. That likely would have been worse. Your father will be proud of you.”

“No doubt,” Sharur said. “He will be proud of me for going up into the mountains of Alashkurru and coming back down with the same goods I took up. He will be proud of me for coming back without copper, without copper ore. He will be proud of me for coming back down without rich things, strange things, unusual things, to lay on the altar of Engibil.” Ningal will be proud of me for coming back without her bride-price.

Quietly, the donkeymaster said, “He will be proud of you for doing as well as you could, for doing as well as you did, in harsh circumstances not of your making.”

“Were those circumstances not partly of my making?” Sharur asked. “Did I not go up into the mountains of Alashkurru before? Did I not speak with the Alashkurrut? Did I not show them what we men of Gibli are, by my words, by my deeds? Did I not help make some of them want to be like us Giblut? Did I not help frighten their gods because some of them wanted to be like us Giblut?”

Harharu bowed his head. “If you are determined to be angry at yourself, master merchant’s son, I cannot stop you. If you are determined to cast scorn upon yourself, I cannot prevent it.” He strode off to check on the donkeys, which, while stubborn, knew not bitterness nor worry ahead of time.

Sharur strode on, alone no matter how close the rest of the caravan might be. What would his father say, what would his father do, when he came home from the mountains without having been able to trade the goods the Alashkurrut were known to crave? Caravans had come back to Gibil with less profit than they might have (though never one headed by a man of his clan). Caravans, sometimes, had failed to come back to Gibil at all, having met with robbers in the mountains or the desert. But never, so far as Sharur knew, had a caravan returned without doing business.

And what would Kimash the lugal say? Kimash had relied on him to bring rich things, strange things, unusual things back to Gibil to lay on the altar of Engibil. The lugal had said as much, when the caravan was just departing his father’s house. Sharur had failed Kimash, too, and in failing Kimash had failed the men of Gibil. For if Engibil grew discontented with Kimash’s rule of the city—if Engibil grew discontented with the way Kimash praised and rewarded him—the god might yet rise up and, instead of resting comfortably and lazily in his temple, as he had been wont to do for three generations of men, might walk through Gibil as Enzuabu walked through Zuabu. He might seize men’s spirits, as Enimhursag seized the spirits of the Imhursagut. And the little freedom the men of Gibil had known would die.

Grim though that prospect was, it was not the prospect uppermost in Sharur’s mind. What would Ningal say, when he came home from the mountains without the bride-price to pay to Dimgalabzu her father? Sharur had sworn a great oath to Engibil to earn that bride-price with the profit from. this caravan. Now he came home without profit, a forsworn man. Would Dimgalabzu give her to another? Sharur kicked at the dirt. The smith would be within his rights.

“But he can’t!” Sharur exclaimed.

“Who can’t, master merchant’s son?” Harharu asked. “And what can’t he do?”

“Never mind.” Sharur’s ears went hot at having let others see into his thoughts. The trouble was, Dimgalabzu could. And, if he decided to, Sharur would not be able to do anything about it. Muttering curses that surely would not bite on the gods of the Alashkurrut, he trudged east toward Gibil.

When the caravan entered the territory ruled by Zuabu, Sharur felt he might as well be home. After so long among so many stranger peoples, the Zuabut^seemed as familiar to him as his next-door neighbors along the Street of Smiths. His comrades must have felt the same, for almost to a man they were grinning and laughing among themselves as they automatically took the precautions they needed to keep the Zuabut from stealing them blind.

“Keep your eyes open, boys,” Mushezib called to the caravan guards under him. “We all know the stories about the caravans that came into the land of Zuabu with a profit and went out with a loss, even though they hadn’t done any trading while they were there. That isn’t going to happen to us... What are you making horrible faces about, Agum? Donkey stepping on your—? Oh.”

Mushezib shut up, several sentences too late. Sharur, also intent on making sure the Zuabut could have no fun with their light fingers, pretended he had not heard the guard captain. This caravan could hardly see its profit disappear in Zuabu, for it had no profit. Making a loss worse somehow seemed much less important, even if the value vanishing from the caravan was the same in either case.

As had been true when he was setting out for the Alashkurru Mountains, Sharur could have taken the caravan into the city of Zuabu to spend a night. As he had then, he camped away from the city. Then, he had begrudged what he would have to pay for food and lodging. He still did, but he had more pressing reasons for avoiding the city now. He did not want to, he did not dare to, enter into Enzuabu’s center on earth, not after the city god had sent such a menacing stare his way on his westbound journey, and most especially not after everything that had happened since.

As had been true then, so now someone shook him out of sound sleep. As had been true then, it was Agum now. What he said, though, was something any caravan guard might have said on any journey through Zuabu: “Master merchant’s son, we’ve caught a thief.”

Sharur yawned till he thought his head would split in two. “Why tell me about it? Give the fellow a beating and send him on his way. He’ll try to steal from the next caravan that comes through, but he won’t try stealing from us again.”

“Master merchant’s son, we were going to do as you say, the very thing, but then the wretch had the nerve to claim Enzuabu ordered him to steal from us, and that the god would punish him if he failed.” Agum made a small, unhappy sound. “What with all that’s gone on this trip, we thought you had better see him.”

With a sigh, Sharur got to his feet. He did not bother pulling on his kilt, but followed Agum naked to the fire beside which three more guards were holding down the thief. Yet another guard fed dry reeds and small dead bushes into the fire to build it up and throw more light on the Zuabi.

He was a small, skinny man, supple as a ferret and with a face to match. “He looks as if he’d steal from us whether Enzuabu ordered him to do it or not,” Sharur remarked to Agum.

“So he does,” Agum agreed. The guards holding the man shook him till the teeth rattled in his head. Agum put a growl in his voice: “You cursed river leech, you tell the master merchant’s son the lies you’ve been grizzling out to the rest of us.”

“Yes, lord,” the Zuabi said, as if Agum were his ensi. “I am a thief. I am the best of thieves. Would Enzuabu have chosen me were I less? Would Enzuabu pull a plow with a hen, or make a pot out of beer? I was suited to my god’s purpose, and his voice sounded in my mind, summoning me to his temple, that he might give me orders there. I obey my god in all things. I went to the temple, and he gave me orders there.”

“And what were the orders he gave you?” Sharur asked.

“Lord, he told me a caravan of Giblut was encamped outside Zuabu, in such-and-such a place at such-and-such a distance. He told me to rob this caravan of Giblut. He told me you Giblut oppose the gods, and that robbing you Giblut is only right and proper because of this. He told me your caravan had in it rich goods of your city, and that robbing it would profit him and me alike.”

Sharur scowled. The thief had been caught before he could rob the caravan. How could he know what goods it had, unless Enzuabu told him? Unless Enzuabu told him, would he not think it had goods from the. mountains of Alashkumi? His words were too much like those Sharur had heard from gods and demons for comfort.

“You have not robbed us,” Sharur said. “What will Enzuabu do with you, now that you have failed?”

“Lord”—the thief shuddered in the grasp of his captors— “he will smite me with boils, and with carbuncles he will smite my wife and my concubine and my children.”

In a judicious voice, Sharur said, “Would it not be fitting, then, to send you away from this place, to send you back to Zuabu, to let your own god punish you as you deserve? In some cities, the gods punish thieves who succeed. Only in Zuabu does the god punish-thieves who fail.”

Agum and the other guards laughed. The thief wailed. “Have mercy on a man who sought only to obey the command of his god!” he cried.

“You would have tried to rob us anyhow,” Agum said roughly. “You deserve your boils, and may your concubine get a carbuncle on her twat.”

The guards laughed again. But Sharur held up a hand, and the laughter stopped. If Enzuabu had sent out the thief, Enzuabu deserved the punishment. And, deliciously, Sharur saw how he might give it, “Let him up,” he said.

Startled, the guards obeyed. Even more startled, the thief rose. Sharur rummaged in a pack until he found a necklace of painted clay beads, as near worthless as made no difference. He laid it on the ground and turned his back.

“Here,” he said. “Steal this. Lay it on Enzuabu’s altar. You will have obeyed your god. He cannot smite you with boils, nor your wife and your concubine and your children with carbuncles.”

When he turned around again, the necklace was gone. So was the thief. From out of the night came a soft call: “My blessings upon you, lord, whatever—” Whatever Enzuabu might say? The thief was wise to stop speaking when he did. But he would not stop thinking. In the silence, Sharur nodded slowly, once.