Rise. Again, the word filled the minds of the mortals who had come before Engibil. Rise, Ereshguna. Rise, Sharur and Tupsharru, the sons of Ereshguna. As the three men got to their feet, the god went on, now moving his lips as if he were a man, “Seek not to beseech me to give back your oath, Sharur son of Ereshguna. Seek not to buy your bride with profit that never was.”
“Great god, mighty god, god who founded this city, god who made this town,” Sharur said through lips numb with fear, “that is not my purpose. That is not why I have come before you. Examine my spirit, great god. Look into my soul, mighty god. You will see I speak the truth. You will see I dare not lie before you.”
Engibil looked at him. Engibil looked into him, as if looking into his mind was as easy as looking into his body. For the god, it was. Sharur felt penetrated, as he had penetrated the Imhursaggi slave woman. Engibil could have learned much Sharur would not have had him know. But he was searching only for the one thing and, when he found it, he withdrew.
“I see you speak the truth,” he said. “I see you dare not lie to me. Speak, then, of the reason you have come before me. Speak, then, of your purpose. Or shall I examine your spirit once more? Shall I look into your soul again?”
“God who founded this city, I will speak,” Sharur said hastily. “God who made this town, I will answer.” Anything to keep the god from going through his mind as he went through clay tablets with writing on them.
“Say on, then.” Engibil folded chiseled arms across massive chest.
Sharur took a deep breath. “Great god, you will know that my caravan brought no copper home from the Alashkurru Mountains. Mighty god, you will know I brought no copper ore to Gibil from the land of the Alashkurrut. Great god, mighty god, you will know the Alashkurrut would trade me no strange things, no rare things, no beautiful things to lay before you for your pleasure, to set on your altar for your delight.”
“Yes, I know this,” Engibil replied. “It does not please me. The copper is of but small concern. The copper ore is of no great moment. That I fail to get my due angers me.” His brows came down like thunder.
Sharur’s eyes flicked to one side, toward his father. Ereshguna’s face was blank, as it would have been in a dicker with another merchant. Sharur did his best to keep his own features similarly impassive. Behind that mask, anger sparked. The god cared nothing for what made Gibil the city thrive. The god cared only for what pleased him. No wonder Kimash had sent him the courtesan.
“Lord Engibil, I believe I know why the Alashkurrut would not treat with us,” Sharur said. “I believe I know why the gods of the Alashkurrut would not let them treat with us.”
“You will tell me how this came to pass. You will tell me why this is so.”
“Great god, I will.” And Sharur related what he had learned from Kessis and Mitas. He finished, “Mighty god, if this thing lies before you, we can give it back. Lord Engibil, if this thing is set on your altar, we can return it.” He did not—he made sure he did not—think about destroying it.
Engibil’s perfect features took on a look of puzzlement. “I recall no such object coming before me.”
“Great god, are you sure?” Sharur blurted. “Mighty god, are you certain?” Only when he saw his father and brother staring at him in alarm did he realize that his words, if Engibil chose to construe them so, might be blasphemous. Who save a blasphemer could doubt anything a god said?
Engibil, fortunately, proved more interested in the riddle than in the possible affront. “I noted no great power trapped in any of the objects I received over this past year. I noted no great power trapped in any of the objects given to men of this city, and thus only indirectly to me, over the past year.”
“Would you have noticed it, had you not been specially seeking it?” Sharur asked, affecting not to hear the god’s casual assumption of ownership over everything and everyone in Gibil. “The man who traded it had no notion of what he was sending out of the mountains.”
“A man!” Engibil’s words dripped scorn. “What does a man know? What can a man know? A man beside a god is a mosquito, trying to suck the blood of time.”
“But this is not a thing of men,” Sharur reminded the god. What Engibil said was true, but, with writing, men gained memory as secure and long-lasting as that of the gods. Again, Sharur did not speak of that. Instead, he continued, “This is a thing of gods. Could the gods of the mountains not have concealed their power within it, hiding that power from both men and gods?”
Engibil frowned, not a frown of anger, but one showing Sharur had thought of something that had not crossed his mind. Engibil was immensely strong. Engibil knew a great deal. All the same, a truly blasphemous thought flicked into Sharur’s mind—and then out again, as fast as he could send it away: the god was not very bright.
“I suppose it could be so,” Engibil said. “I did not closely examine my gifts to see if they might have this power embedded in them. Why would I do such a thing, when I saw no need? Now I see a need. Now I will closely examine my gifts. You will come with me, even if you are only men. Come.”
He rose from his throne and set one hand on Sharur’s shoulder, one hand on Tupsharru’s, and one hand on Eresh- guna’s. He was a god: if he needed an extra hand, he had one. Against Sharur’s bare skin, the flesh of his hand did not feel like flesh, but like warm metal. Engibil’s eyes blazed. As if Sharur had looked into the sun, for a moment he could see nothing but the light that poured out from them.
When his vision cleared, he found that his father and his brother and Engibil and he were no longer in the audience chamber at the top of the temple, but in a storeroom like the storerooms that made up so much of Kimash’s palace. They proved not to be alone in the storeroom. A priest and a courtesan—not nearly so fine a courtesan as had ministered to Engibil’s pleasure—had been about to lie down together. They both squeaked in astonished dismay.
Laughter rolled from Engibil in great waves. “Elsewhere!” he boomed. “Elsewhere, elsewhere.” The priest and the courtesan fled. Sharur would have fled, too. The storeroom had a higher ceiling than that of the audience chamber. Here, instead of being man-sized, Engibil was half again as tall and all the more awe-inspiring.
Despite that, Sharur’s first thought, one the god luckily did not read, was What a lot of junk. That was not completely fair, and he knew it. Many of Engibil’s treasures were of gold and silver and precious stones. Those glowed in the light that poured out of the god. The lugals of Gibil, and the ensis before them, had given of the best they had.
But they had also literally followed the dictum strange things, rare things, beautiful things. The beautiful things were beautiful. The rare things were rare: Sharur gaped to see a necklace of huge, shimmering pearls. Caravans to distant Laravanglal would sometimes bring back from the east, along with the tin that hardened copper into bronze, a pearl or two, having paid enormous amounts of metal to gain them. Pearls as large as these, so many all together, each perfectly matched to its neighbors—Sharur had never known nor imagined the like.
And the strange things were ... strange. Why any lugal would have chosen to give Engibil a piece of pottery shaped like a spider and painted with alarming realism was beyond Sharur. And the basketwork dog standing on its hind legs to display a large erection might have been funny the first time someone saw it, but after that?
Engibil said, “Where is this thing into which the gods of the Alashkurrut are said to have poured their power? Do you see it? Do you know which of my many treasures it is?”