So did Ereshguna. The master merchant sipped, then said, “Son, tell me what is in your mind: why, in your reckoning, did Engibil choose the moment he chose to release you from your oath concerning the bride-price for Ningal?”
“Did we not have the same notion at the same time?” Sharur asked.
Ereshguna smiled. “Each of us had a notion at the same time. Whether we had the same notion, I cannot know until I learn what your notion was.”
“That is so,” Sharur admitted. “Very well, then. I will tell you what my notion was.” Before continuing, he covered the eyes of the amulet to Engibil he wore on his belt. His father did the same with the amulet he wore. Whatever their notions were, neither of them wanted the god to know. As neither of them was sure about precisely how much good their precautions did, Sharur went on warily: “My notion, Father, is that the god chose to release me from my oath concerning the bride-price for Ningal to make me so joyous, I would forget about every other concern I had.”
“Thus far we walk the same trail, like two donkeys yoked together,” Ereshguna said. “But tell me one thing more. Do you think the god wanted you to forget every other concern you hold, or some concern in particular?”
“Father, your thoughts are as orderly as the accounts set down on our clay tablets,” Sharur said, and Ereshguna smiled again. “I think Engibil wanted me to forget some concern in particular. I think the god wanted to distract me from helping Habbazu the Zuabi steal from his temple the cup, the plain cup, the ordinary cup, from the mountains of Alashkurru.”
“Indeed, you are truly my son,” Ereshguna said. “The same canal waters your.thoughts and mine. That is the reason I also believe Engibil had for loosening his hold on the oath you gave him. I do not believe the god wanted Habbazu to go forward. I do not believe the god wanted us to help Habbazu go forward.”
Sharur scratched his head. “Do you think, then, that Engibil discovered the cup from the mountains was an object of power because he learned the Zuabi thief sought to steal it?”
“I do not.” Ereshguna sounded thoroughly grim. “I think the god knew from the beginning the cup from the mountains was an object of power.”
Now his thoughts had got ahead of those of his son. Sharur raced to catch up. When he did, he stared at his father. “You are saying the god knew this thing and told us he did not.” From there, it was but a short step to the full and appalling meaning of Ereshguna’s words: “You are saying the god told us a lie.”
“Yes,” Ereshguna answered in a voice soft and dark and heavy as lead. “That is what I am saying.”
His fingers were pressed over the eyes of his amulet, so hard that his fingernails turned pale. Rooking down at his own hands, Sharur saw their nails were yellowish white, too. “But why?” he whispered. “Why would the god tell us a lie? Why would he not speak the truth to men of his own city?”
“I do not know that,” Ereshguna said. “Ever since you returned from the temple with your news, I have pondered it. I have found no answer that satisfies me.”
Though Sharur sat inside with his father, he glanced toward the temple. He could see it in his mind’s eye as clearly as if all the walls between had fallen down, as clearly as if it were bright noon rather than black of night. He hoped Kimash had found some distraction for Engibil at this moment. Slowly, cautiously, he said, “Perhaps the god intends to let lack of trade stifle the city. Perhaps he intends all of Gibil to grow poor, so that all of Gibil will be glad to have him back as its ruler.”
“Perhaps so,” Ereshguna said. “This thought, or one not far different from it, also crossed my mind. It comes nearer to accounting for why the god is doing as he is doing than any other I have found. But I do not think it accounts in fullness for the god’s acts.”
“How not?” Sharur said.
“I will explain how not. I will set it forth for you,” his father answered. “What troubles me is that, if Gibil grows poor, Gibil also grows weak. If Gibil grows weak, what will our enemies do? What will Imhursag do? What will Enimhursag do? Will the god of Imhursag not believe Gibil’s weakness and Engibil’s weakness to be one and the same?”
“Ah,” Sharur said. “I see what you are saying. Yes, I think that is likely. Imhursag smarts from defeats at the hands of Gibil. Enimhursag smarts from defeats at the hands of Engibil. If Gibil grows weak, Engibil will also seem to have grown weak. The god of Imhursag and the Imhursagut will want their revenge.”
“Even so.” Ereshguna nodded. “This is why I do not understand why Engibil would seek to weaken his city, even to regain his rule here.”
“Ah,” Sharur said again. “Now I follow. Now your thought is clear to me. What could be so important to the god that he would sooner have his city humiliated than yield it?”
“That is half the riddle, but only half, and, I think, the smaller half,” Ereshguna said. “What could be so important to Engibil that he would sooner have himself humiliated than yield it?”
Sharur inclined his head. His father had drawn a distinction that needed drawing. Sharur had seen how Engibil could be indifferent to whether or not the folk of Gibil prospered. The god even wondered whether such marvels as metalworking and writing, which helped the folk of Gibil prosper, were worthwhile, because they infringed on his prerogatives.
But one of the god’s prerogatives was his standing among his fellow gods. If Gibil grew weak, Imhursag would defeat it. If Imhursag defeated Gibil, Enimhursag’s power would grow and Engibil’s would recede. The two neighboring gods truly did hate each other, like two families living in the same street whose children threw rocks at one another.
As Ereshguna had, Sharur asked, “What could make Engibil willing to take a step back—perhaps to take several steps back—before Enimhursag, with whom he has quarreled since time out of mind?”
“Whatever it is, it has to do with the cup into which the great gods of the Alashkurrut poured their power,” Ereshguna said. “Of that we may be certain.”
“Yes,” Sharur said. Dimly, he remembered the cup that had figured in his fever dreams. Part of him wished he could recall more of those dreams. The rest of him wished he could forget them altogether, as madness he was better off without.
Ereshguna went on, “But we may be as certain of another thing: that we do not know why Engibil has such concern for this cup, which holds none of his own power, and that it may be—no, that it is—very important for us to learn the reason for his concern.”
“Every word you say is true,” Sharur replied. In a whisper, he added, “This is more than can be said of Engibil in this matter.”
“So it is.” His father also whispered. “Well, I shall try to say one more true thing, and then I shall drink the last of my beer here and go up on the roof to sleep. Here is the last true thing I shall try to say: I think we need to let Kimash the lugal know a Zuabi thief is prowling his city.”
“My father, in this, too, you are right.” Sharur drank the last of the beer from his own cup. He doused all the torches but one, which he and Ereshguna used to light their way upstairs.
When Sharur walked with Ereshguna to the lugal’s palace the next day, he felt more nearly himself than he had since the fever demon breathed its foul breath into his mouth. He looked up and down the Street of Smiths as he walked along, hoping he might spot Habbazu. But the Zuabi thief did not show himself. Sharur wondered if he had already crept into Engibil’s temple to steal the cup, and if he had escaped with it.
As they drew near the palace, Ereshguna raised an eyebrow. “Things are quiet here today,” he remarked. “Things are quieter here today than I have seen them for a long time.”