“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.”