Ereshguna ran a hand through his beard. “These small gods of Alashkurru did not say what sort of thing had been carried down from the mountains here to Gibil?”
“No, Father, they did not. If they spoke truly, they knew not.” Sharur paused to dip up a fresh cup of beer from the pot the Imhursaggi slave woman had brought at Ereshguna’s order. After sipping, he went on, “I believe they did speak truly. They reckoned me a Zuabi who would use what they said against Gibil, not a Gibli who would use it for his own city.”
“And yet that one Alashkurri knew you for what you were.” Ereshguna stroked his beard once more. “Once men see other men free, they want to become free themselves. This is so in Alashkurru. This is so in cities of Kudurru ruled by ensis; I know as much for a fact. It could be so even in cities of Kudurru ruled by gods.”
“It must be so,” Sharur said. “Gods once ruled all cities. Even the rule of ensis gives men more freedom—or lets men take more freedom—than the rule of gods.” He hunched his shoulders, remembering the voice of Engibil forbidding him to borrow from his father to pay Ningal’s bride-price.
“Whatever this thing is, it must be a thing that came to Gibil in one of last year’s caravans from Alashkurru,” Ereshguna said, returning to the business at hand. “Last year, the gods of Alashkurru were friendly to us; not so this year. Likely, I would say, this thing came to Gibil in a caravan of the house of Ereshguna. We deal more with the Alash- kumit than any other merchant house of Gibil.”
“Likely I brought this thing to Gibil myself,” Sharur said. “But how do we go about finding out what it is? I will guess it is not an ingot of copper. I will guess it is not a sack of copper ore. These things would be changed and broken in the use of them. By what the small gods said, the power of the great gods is not lost from the thing in which they hid it, and the thing is not broken; they fear lest the thing be broken, and the power lost.”
Tupsharru said, “If it is not copper, if it is not copper ore, it is likely to be a strange thing, a curious thing, a beautiful thing. If it is a strange thing, a curious thing, a beautiful thing, it may be anywhere in the city, for many Giblut prize these things and pay us well for them. But likeliest of all—”
“—Likeliest of all,” Sharur finished for him, “likeliest of all is that it lies on the altar of Engibil, or stored away in the god’s temple, for Kimash the mighty lugal delights in giving Engibil such gifts.”
“This is good,” Ereshguna said. “This is very good indeed. If such a thing lies on the altar of Engibil, surely the god will know it for what it is. If such a thing is stored away in the god’s temple, surely he will point it out to us.”
“If we return it to the gods of Alashkurru, they will no longer have reason to hate us,” Tupsharru said. “Our caravans will be able to go into the mountains. They will come home with copper and copper ore. The city will profit. The house of Ereshguna will profit.”
“I will profit,” Sharur said dreamily. “With my profit, I will pay Ningal’s bride-price to Dimgalabzu the smith and fulfill my oath to Engibil.”
“Let us go to the temple and seek this thing,” Ereshguna said. “If we find it, Kimash the lugal will reward us for saving the city from its sorrow.”
They drained their cups of beer. They set them down. They got to their feet. It was then that Sharur had a new thought, a different thought. “If we find this thing in the temple of Engibil, if we find it there and we break it...” His father and his brother stared at him as he finished the thought: “If we find it and we break it, we punish the gods of Alashkurru for slighting us.”
“What good would that do?” Tupsharru exclaimed in horror. “It would only make them hate us more.”
Ereshguna said nothing. “You see, don’t you, Father?” Sharur asked. Slowly, unwillingly, Ereshguna nodded. By Tupsharru’s wide eyes, he still did not follow. Sharur explained: “Into this thing, for safekeeping, the great gods of the Alashkurrut have poured much of their power. If we break the thing, we break the power and set the Alashkurrut free of their great gods.”
“Only in Gibil, and only in your generation, my son, would such a thought come into the mind of a man.” Ereshguna sounded awed and terrified at the same time. “I think Tupsharru has the better course. The Alashkurrut are only Alashkurrut. Who cares whether their gods rule them or not? If we find the thing, those gods are welcome to it. They will reward us for it, as your brother says, and Kimash the lugal will reward us for it as well.”
“It may be so,” Sharur said. “But if an Alashkurri like Piluliumas can free himself, if an Alashkurri like Huzziyas can tremble on the edge of freeing himself, how many in the mountains would be free if the great gods there were weakened?”
“Where is the profit in it?” his father asked.
“I care only so much for profit,” Sharur answered. Now his father gaped at him, as if he had said Engibil did not exist or uttered some other manifest absurdity. He went on, “I care also about revenge. The gods of the Alashkurrut have wronged me. Let them pay.”
“Aye, let them pay,” Ereshguna said. “Let them pay compensation for the wrong.”
“Let them pay pain for the wrong, as I have done,” Sharur said. But now he wavered. Even a killer’s family could avoid blood feud by payments to the victim’s kin. He scowled. He kicked at the dirt floor. “Perhaps.” His tone was grudging.
Tupsharru said, “We are pricing the lamb not born. We are pricing the sword not sharpened. We have not found this thing, whatever it may be. We do not know if we shall find this thing, whatever it may be.”
“True!” Ereshguna seized on that with transparent eagerness. “We do not know enough to have any certain plans yet. Let us go to the temple and see what we may learn. Let us go to the temple and see what Engibil may teach us.”
“Yes, let us go,” Sharur said, and left his home with his father and his brother. The way the god had refused to release him from his oath and let him borrow from his father to pay bride-price to Dimgalabzu let him less eager than he might have been to approach Engibil’s house upon earth, but it needed doing, and he did not shrink from that which needed doing. Perhaps, as Tupsharru had said, finding the thing into which the Alashkurri gods had poured their power would let him make a profitable journey after all. And perhaps, as he had said himself, finding the thing would let him take revenge on the gods.
Either way, he thought. Either way.
Engibil’s temple was larger than the palace of Kimash the lugal. The chamber at the top of the temple where the god dwelt, toward which the massive structure tapered in a series of steps, was the highest point in Gibil. From it, Engibil could look out across the whole city and across all the farmlands it ruled.
Bigger than the palace the temple might have been. It was not more splendid. For one thing, much of it was old. Because it was built of baked bricks rather than sun-dried mud brick—nothing but the best for Engibil—that was not so obvious as it might have been otherwise. The temple was not crumbling to pieces. But the brickwork had a faded, sun- blasted look that said it had been standing for a long time. No additions were going up, as they constantly were at the lugal’s palace.
Hangings of rich wool dyed crimson and the savor of burnt offerings went some way toward concealing the aging bones beneath, as paint would on a woman. And, as a woman heavy with paint might be a long time realizing she was no longer beautiful, so Engibil, lulled by Kimash’s splendid presents and those of the previous lugals, had not yet noticed he was less supreme in his city than had once been so.