“Great god, I do not know where it is,” Sharur answered, looking to his father in consternation. “Mighty god, I do not know which of your many treasures it is.” His eyes went now here, now there. So many pieces in the treasury were, or could have been, of Alashkurri work. He felt no special power in any of them. How could he? He was only a man.
Tupsharru spoke: “Lord Engibil, now that you are among your treasures, can you not feel the power poured into one of them?”
Engibil frowned again. He turned in all directions inside the treasure room, to the north, to the east, to the south, and last of all to the west. He reached out his hands—and in the reaching he had as many hands as he wanted—to the shelves and tables set against each wall, as if feeling of the objects set on each one. The frown deepened. At last, Engibil turned back toward Sharur and Tupsharru and Ereshguna. “I do not know what this thing is,” the god said. “I do not know where it may be. I can feel nothing of it. Son of Ereshguna, are you sure the Alashkurri small gods were not playing a trick on you?”
“I am sure,” Sharur said. Seeing his father give him a doubtful look hurt worse than having the god disbelieve him. “I am sure,” he repeated.
“Maybe this thing is elsewhere in the city,” Engibil said, “although, as I told you, I sensed it nowhere. Maybe the great gods of the Alashkurrut were playing tricks on their small gods.”
“Tricks are all very well, great god,” Sharur said. “But, mighty god, if not for the reason Kessis and Mitas gave me, why have the great gods of Alashkurru come to hate the people of Gibil? Why have even the gods of Kudurru come to despise the people of Gibil?”
“I have told you what I know,” Engibil replied. “I have told you what I do not know. It is enough.” He reached out and once more took hold of Sharur and Ereshguna and Tupsharru by the shoulder. In an instant, the three men and the god were back in the audience chamber atop the temple. “I dismiss you,” Engibil said. “Go on about your lawful occasions, and seek no longer to circumvent my will.”
His words beat against Sharur’s mind like a windstorm. The young merchant had all he could do to nerve himself to ask the god whether he might speak. When he did, Engibil’s eyes burned into his own until he had to struggle to hold his own gaze steady. At last, Engibil dipped his head in brusque assent. “I thank you, great god,” Sharur gasped as the pressure of the god’s will eased. “You are generous, mighty god. Here is what I would ask you: have I your leave to go on searching for this thing of which Kessis and Mitas told me?”
“If I, a god, cannot find this thing, why do you imagine that you, a mortal man, will have any better fortune?” Engibil demanded. “I do not believe this thing even exists, no matter what the small gods of Alashkurru may have told you.”
“If it does not exist, my searching will do no harm,” Sharur answered. “If it should exist, my searching may do some good.” Was he contradicting the god? He did not worry about that until he had already spoken, by which time it was too late.
If contradiction there was, Engibil, fortunately, once more failed to notice it. “When mortals have so little time,” he said, “I marvel at the ways in which they choose to fritter it away. Do what you will in this, son of Ereshguna. You will discover nothing, the reason being there is nothing to discover.”
Sharur did a very human thing: he accepted the permission and ignored the scorn behind it. “I thank you, great god,” he said, bowing low.
Now the fires of Engibil’s eyes were banked, hooded. “I do not say you are welcome,” the god replied. “Be gone from my sight.”
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.”