8
A peasant grubbing at the ground with a stoneheaded mattock looked up from his unending labor as Sharur strode north along the path. “Watch where you’re going,” the peasant warned. “Imhursaggi land starts just beyond that next big canal there.” He pointed. “The Imhursagut aren’t fond of men from Gibil, either, not even a little they’re not.”
“I know that,” Sharur answered, and kept walking.
The peasant took an especially savage swipe at the dirt. “City man,” he muttered, barely loud enough for Sharur to hear. “Has to be a city man. Men from the city never listen to anybody.”
He would probably be happier if Engibil told him what to do, Sharur thought. He doesn't seem to be very good at thinking for himself Everything that had happened in Gibil the past few generations—metalworking, writing, the rise of rulers who were merely mortal—was of no account to this man, and to thousands like him. Nothing that happened outside his own little village mattered to him, or to his neighbors.
Sharur came to the canal. The peasants working in the fields on the other side were Imhursagut. By looks, they were indistinguishable from the Giblut, save that rather more of them went altogether naked, being too poor to wear even a kilt of linen or wool.
Stripping off his own kilt, his sandals, and his hat, Sharur waded out into the canal. The muddy water was warm as blood. He did not know if he would have to swim in the middle of the canal; he had never come this way before. The water came up to his shoulders, but no higher. He had no trouble keeping his clothes dry.
He stepped up onto the northern, Imhursaggi, bank of the canal and stood there, naked and dripping. The breeze cooled him as it dried the water on his body. Only after he was dry did he don his hat and his sandals and his kilt again. By the time he had it round his middle, he was surrounded by Imhursagut.
Some had mattocks, some had digging sticks, some had nothing but their bare hands. All of them looked ready to beat Sharur to death. Their expressions were frighteningly alike, as if someone had used a cylinder seal to stamp out a long row of identical faces.
“You are a Gibli,” one of them said. “You are an intruder. You are an invader. Why do you come to trouble the land of Imhursag? Why do you come to disturb the peace of Enimhursag? Answer at once, lest we tear you to pieces. Answer this instant, lest we smash you down.”
“I do not come to trouble the land of Imhursag,” Sharur answered: his first lie with his first words. “I do not come to disturb the peace of Enimhursag. I come to escape the city of Gibil, which has fallen into chaos. I come to escape the god of Gibil, who has gone mad.”
That made the Imhursaggi peasants stare and mutter among themselves. Enimhursag did not look out of all their eyes all the time; at the moment, they were merely men, trying to make sense of the world as men will.
But the fellow who had threatened Sharur with tearing and smashing now took on the look he had seen in the trader from the Imhursaggi caravan, the look that said Enimhursag was present in his mind. He spoke slowly, as if listening to the god before uttering his words: “What nonsense do you speak? When I look into the land of Gibil, I see everything as it has always been. When I look into the land the Giblut stole from me, I see them doing as they have always done.”
“In the farms around the city, everything is as it has always been,” Sharur agreed, and he knew he was speaking the truth there. “In the land you can see, the Giblut do as they have always done. In Gibil, Engibil has gone mad, as I say.”
“Giblut are liars. They suck in lies with their mothers’ milk,” Enimhursag answered through the peasant. “What lie do you give me now?”
“I give you no lie, god of Imhursag,” Sharur replied, lying. “Hear me. Hear me speak truth. Judge for yourself: Engibil had in his hands, in his heart, an oath of mine. He would not let it go. He refused to let it go.”
Out of the peasant’s mouth, Enimhursag laughed a great laugh. “Why should he let it go? He is a god—not much of a god, being Engibil, but a god. You are a man—not much of a man, being a Gibli, but a man. He owes you nothing. You owe him everything.”
Sharur bowed. “Let it be as you say, god of Imhursag. But hear me. Hear me speak truth. After the god of Gibil did as I said, hear what he did. After the god of Gibil did as I said, he summoned me to his temple and gave me back the oath he held in his hand, in his heart. He let it go. Is the god mad, or is he not?”
“Giblut are liars,” Enimhursag repeated. “I do not believe what you say. I cannot believe what you say. No god would give back that which he had refused to give back.”
Sharur took a deep breath. “Look into my mind, god of Imhursag,” he said, knowing the risk he ran. He had not expected Enimhursag to be quite so dubious. “Look into my mind, god of the Imhursagut. See if Engibil held my oath and would not let it go. See if Engibil held my oath and then did let it go. Look for those two things. See if I speak truth.”
Out through the eyes of the peasant poured Enimhursag’s power. Sharur did not resist it. Sharur could not resist it. If Enimhursag chose to use that power to paw through everything in his mind, everything would be lost. But he had suggested to the god what he should look for. He put those things at the front of his mind, so Enimhursag might easily find them.
Find them Enimhursag did. “It is so!” the god cried through the peasant’s lips. The other peasants exclaimed in astonishment at hearing their god agree with a man of Gibil. Sharur stood very still, trying not to think of Enimhursag pawing through the rest of his mind.
Trying not to think about something, Sharur discovered, was like trying not to breathe. He could, with great effort, do it for a short stretch of time, but after that the urge grew more and more demanding until. . .
Enimhursag withdrew. Sharur felt the god leaving his mind, as he had felt his body leaving the water of the canal. “It is so!” Enimhursag repeated. “You have told me the truth. Truly Engibil must be a god run mad upon the earth.”
“So we of Gibil believe,” Sharur said, not inviting Enimhursag to search his mind this time. “So we of Gibil fear.”
“Men should fear the gods,” Enimhursag said. “You of Gibil should fear Engibil. You of Gibil fear Engibil too little. But men should fear gods because gods are gods, not because gods are mad.”
“Even so,” Sharur said.
When the peasant through whom Enimhursag spoke nodded, Sharur did all he could do not to fall to his knees before the tough, unwashed Imhursaggi. The god spoke again: “And what would you have me do about the madness of Engibil?”
“Rescue us!” Sharur cried with all the passion he could muster, all the passion his training as a merchant enabled him to counterfeit so well. “Muster your valiant warriors. Come down and drive from his city the god who is now a terror to it. The Giblut will welcome you as lord. The Giblut will welcome you as liberator, freeing them from a master on whom they may no longer rely.”
If Enimhursag was searching his mind at this moment, he was ruined, and he knew it. But he had read the god of Imhursag rightly. The eyes of the peasant through whom the god chose to speak glowed like the sun. “Vengeance shall be mine!” he cried in a great voice. “Vengeance on Gibil shall be mine. Vengeance on the Giblut shall be mine. Vengeance on Engibil shall be mine. The land Gibil, the Giblut, and Engibil have stolen from me shall be mine. And all the rest of the land of Gibil shall be mine as well.”