Before long, Zuabut, curious as crows, came flocking to the caravan. They were as full of questions as they were of gossip, which was very full indeed. As they chattered away, they eyed the donkeys—and the bundles on the beasts’ backs—with bright, avid eyes. Mushezib and the rest of the guards all did their best to look fierce and vigilant. Sharur was mournfully certain something would turn up missing; he hoped it wouldn’t be anything too valuable or important.
You never could tell how much attention you ought to pay to anything the Zuabut said. Sharur listened to the story of Nurili, the ensi of Zuabu, impregnating all fourteen of his wives on the same night with the amount of incredulity he thought it deserved. “The god spoke through him,” insisted the man of Zuabu telling the tale.
“The god poked through him, you say?” Sharur returned, pretending to misunderstand the hissing Zuabi dialect. His own men laughed. After a moment, when they realized Enzuabu wasn’t offended (or, at least, hadn’t noticed), the Zuabut laughed, too. Sharur went on, “That’s what it would have taken, I think.”
But not all the tales were tall ones. Another man of Zuabu said, “Three days ago, a caravan from Imhursag came through our land, also heading west. If you meet on the road, I hope you do not fight.”
Zuabu was at peace with Gibil. But Zuabu was also at peace with Imhursag. Sharur said, “We will not be the first to fight. But if the Imhursagut quarrel with us, we will not be the first to leave off fighting, either.”
“That is good. That is as it should be,” the Zuabi said, nodding. “It may be, too, that you and the Imhursagut will not meet.”
“Yes, it may be,” Sharur agreed. “Whither are they bound?”
“To the mountains of Alashkurru, even as you are,” the man of Zuabu replied. “Still, it may be that you and they will not meet. Three days is much time for travelers to make up on the road.”
“This is also true,” Sharur said. He did not believe it, though, not down in his heart. Had he had a three days lead on the men of Imhursag, he would have been sure they could never catch him up. Being three days behind them, he reckoned it likely he would pass them on the road. People from towns where gods ruled directly never seemed to move quite so fast as those who did all their own thinking, all their own planning, for themselves.
The Zuabi pointed. “Look there in the sky!” he said, his voice rising in excitement. “It is a mountain eagle, flying to the west. This is bound to be a good omen for your caravan.”
For a moment, Sharur’s eyes did go to the sky. Then they swung back to the man of Zuabu, who was stepping rapidly toward the closest donkey. In his hand he had a little knife of chipped flint, the sort of knife everyone had used in the days before bronze. Sharur reached out and grabbed his wrist. “I do not think you would be wise to cut any bundles open. I think you would be wise to go away from this caravan and never let us see your face again.”
“This is how you pay me back for warning you of your enemies?” the man said indignantly.
“No. This is how I pay you back for lying to me about the omen and for trying to steal my goods.” Sharur spoke without heat. The people of Zuabu were given to thievery, and that was all there was to it. “Put away your little stone knife and go in peace. That is how I pay you back for warning me.”
“Oh, very well,” the man of Zuabu said. “You should have been fooled.”
“I have been through Zuabu and the lands it rules before,” Sharur answered. “I know some of your tricks—not all of them, but some.”
The donkeys plodded on. Toward evening, they approached the city of Zuabu. Only one building was tall enough for its upper portions to be seen over the top of the city walclass="underline" the temple to Enzuabu. Sharur knew the ensi’s residence was only a small annex to the temple, not a palace in its own right, as Kimash the lugal enjoyed back in Gibil.
“Shall we go up into the city for the night, master merchant’s son?” Harharu asked.
Sharur shook his head. “I see no need to pay for lodgings, not when the weather is fine and we can sleep on our blankets. We have not been traveling so long that we stand in need of special comforts. On the way home, maybe we shall bed down in Zuabu, to remind ourselves of what lies just ahead.” That satisfied the donkeymaster. It also satisfied Mushezib, who, from everything Sharur had seen, liked going out on the road better than living soft in a city, anyhow. If the assistant donkey handlers and ordinary guards had different opinions, no one bothered to find out what they were.
Some time in the middle of the night, one of the guards, a burly fellow named Agum, shook Sharur awake. The moon had risen not long before, spilling soft yellow light over the land between the rivers. Sharur murmured a prayer of greeting to Nusku, then said, “What’s wrong?”
Agum pointed toward the walls of Zuabu. “Master merchant’s son, I’m glad we’re not in that city tonight. Look— Enzuabu walks.”
A chill went through Sharur. As gods went in the land of Kudurru, Engibil was a placid sort. Had it be£n otherwise, he should never have allowed merely human lugals to rule Gibil these past three generations. He was content, even eager, to accept the offerings the lugals gave him, and to stay in his temple to receive them. He had not gone abroad in his city since Sharur was a boy.
But, as Engibil had once done, other gods played more active roles in the lives of their cities. And so, his eyes wide with awe, Sharur saw Enzuabu’s moonlight-washed figure, twice as tall as the walls of Zuabu, go striding through the streets. The god’s eyes would have glowed whether the moon was in the sky or not; looking at them put Sharur in mind of the yellow-hot fires the smiths used to melt bronze for casting.
Across a couple of furlongs, those eyes met Sharur’s. To the merchant’s horror, Enzuabu paused in his peregrinations. He stared out toward the caravan as if contemplating paying it a visit. If he did, Sharur did not judge from the way his great form tensed that the visit would be a pleasant one.
Sharur’s hand closed over the amulet he wore on his belt. “Engibil is my lord,” he said rapidly. “Engibil has no quarrel with the lord of Zuabu.”
For a moment, he thought Enzuabu would ignore that invocation and reminder. But then the god lowered his burning gaze so that it fell within the city once more. He reached down onto, or perhaps through, the roof of one of the houses there. When he straightened, the hand with which he had reached was closed—on what or whom, Sharur could not see. He thought that just as well.
Agum’s voice was a bare thread of whisper: “If we’d been in there, he might have grabbed us like that.”
He might have grabbed me like that, Sharur thought. For whatever reason, Enzuabu had taken him for an enemy, although, as he’d said, Enzuabu and Engibil were at peace, no less than their cities were. Sharur scratched his head in bewilderment. He’d come through Zuabu and its hinterland several times, going to and from the Alashkurru Mountains. Never once had the god of Zuabu taken the least notice of him.
A thought much like that must have crossed Agum’s mind, for the guard asked, “Did you somehow anger Enzuabu, master merchant’s son?”
“Not in any way I know,” Sharur answered. “Come the morning, though, I will make a forgiveness-offering even.”
“It is good,” Agum said. “I do not want a god angry at us.”
“No, nor I.” Sharur watched Enzuabu until the god shrank down to accommodate himself to his temple once more. Only then did the merchant think it safe to lie down and go back to sleep.
He greeted the rise of Shumukin, the lord of the sun, with a prayer set to the same music as that for Nusku the night before. Shumukin was, without a doubt, the most reliable god the folk of Kudurru knew. His one failing was that he sometimes did not know his own strength.