“He doesn’t need to explain them to me. I can figure them out for myself,” Mushezib said. After giving Habbazu the sort of look he would have given to offal he needed to wipe from the soles of his sandals, he strode out of the house of Ereshguna. By his manner, he might have been a great captain who had just led the Gibli army to victory against Imhursag, not a guard captain who had just laid hands on a single thief.
Having dealt with donkeys for so many years, Harharu was less confident he could immediately understand everything that went on around him. He let go of Habbazu and said, “I hope our capturing the thief after so long a time still suits your purposes, master merchant’s son.”
“Did it not, would I have given you gold?” Sharur returned. “Did it not, would I have set a ring of precious metal on your finger?”
“I am not so quick to judge purposes as my comrade,” Harharu said. “Whatever yours may be, I pray they prosper.” He bowed to Sharur and followed Mushezib out onto the Street of Smiths.
Habbazu turned his dark gaze on Sharur. Sharur coughed and looked away and drummed his fingers on his thigh and did everything else he could to convey without words how embarrassed he was. Habbazu, now, Habbazu had words: “In a way, learning how greatly I am desired is heartening, but only in a way. Were you a beautiful woman seeking me so, I should have come closer to finding it worthwhile. Even then, though, having my arms all but pulled from their sockets would be no small sacrifice.”
“I set the men seeking you long before you stole the thing from the place wherein it was kept,” Sharur said, speaking obliquely from long habit. “When they did not find you, the thought in my mind was that they would not and could not find you, and so I did not call them off. This was an error on my part. I see as much now, and I am sorry for it.”
“I have heard few apologies in my life,” Habbazu said, “and I have heard fewer apologies still that sound as if those who make them speak from the heart, not from the tongue alone. Now I press new syllables into the clay tablet of my memory.”
“Master thief, you are gracious. Habbazu, you are generous,” Sharur said. “I shall spread the word throughout the city that you are to be hunted no more. I shall spread the word to caravan guards and donkey handlers that you are to be left alone.”
“I might wish you had done this sooner. I do wish you had done this sooner,” Habbazu said. “Still, that you do it at all speaks well of you.” He paused. “I hope your noising my name abroad in the city does not bring me to the notice of the lugal. I hope your speaking of me to caravan guards and- donkey handlers does not bring me to the notice of the temple and the god.”
“You need not fear the lugal,” Sharur said. “Now that the deed is done, he is glad it is done. As for the temple and the god...” He told of letting Kimash know that Engibil had stored a great part of his power as the gods of the Alashkurrut had stored a great part of theirs.
“Is this so?” Habbazu murmured. “Is it so. indeed? I did not hear the gods of the Alashkurrut speak thus in any dream I dreamt. And yet... and yet it makes sense that it should be so, eh? If some gods do thus, should not all gods do likewise?”
“So it would seem,” Sharur replied. “So I believe. But of proof I have none.”
“If the gods of the Alashkurrut do thus and Engibil does likewise, would it not follow that Enimhursag also does likewise?” Habbazu said. Seeing Sharur’s predatory smile, the master thief grinned back, a grin that made him look very much like a pretematurally clever monkey. Slowly, that grin faded, to be replaced by a thoughtful expression. “And would it not follow that Enzuabu also does likewise?”
Sharur stepped forward and set a hand on Habbazu’s shoulder. “I congratulate you, my friend. Now you have become more surely a Gibli for the rest of your life than ever you were before. If you enter into Zuabu with this thought in your mind, if Enzuabu sees this thought in your mind as you enter into Zuabu, what will become of you?” He had sent Nasibugashi and Duabzu toward Imhursag with this thought in their minds and without a qualm in his own. Them he had used as weapons against Enimhursag, as he had used a sword in the recent fighting against the god of the Imhursagut. Habbazu was not merely a weapon. Habbazu had become an ally and, in an odd way, a friend.
“What will become of me?” the Zuabi repeated. “Less than you think, master merchant’s son. Do you not know, do you not remember, that the god of Zuabu is also the god of thieves? Do you not think that the god of thieves is able to protect his own from those who would steal it?”
“A point,” Sharur admitted. “Surely a point. And yet, how great a point? Is he able to protect his own from those who would steal provided that they are many and diligent and seek their goal for generations if need be?”
Habbazu’s mobile eyebrows sprang upwards. “I do not know. I wonder if Enzuabu would know. Being a god, he would also be sure he could defeat any one man, and he would be right in being sure. But can he defeat, can he deceive, all men over all time? Would such a thought even cross his mind? I do not know.”
“Being a god, he is sure to be arrogant,” Sharur said. “Having held so much power for so long, gods think they shall easily hold all power forever. Certain potsherds that have been swept away should teach them otherwise.”
“Hmm,” Habbazu said. “Perhaps I would do best to stay in Gibil after all—provided, of course, that you can keep these Gibli ruffians from assaulting me in the street while I pursue my lawful occasions.”
“You are a Zuabi master thief,” Sharur exclaimed. “How can you possibly pursue lawful occasions?”
Spoken in a different tone of voice, that would have been an insult. As it was, the two men grinned at each other. Habbazu said, “Whatever occasions I pursue, I shall now go and pursue them. Have I your gracious leave to do that— if, as I say, I am not to be manhandled the instant I show my face outside your door?”
“You have my gracious leave, certainly,” Sharur said. “Whether you prove to have Mushezib’s gracious leave, or Harharu’s, is liable to be a different question.”
“They took me by surprise, as you did earlier.” Habbazu looked annoyed at himself. “Now I know their faces. Now I know their voices. Now I know their movements, even if I spy them moving in a crowd. They shall not lay hands on me again, I assure you.”
“I have no doubt that you know your own affairs best,” Sharur said.
Habbazu nodded, walked out the door, and might as well have disappeared. It was indeed almost as if a demon had wrapped a cloak of invisibility around him. Sharur went to the doorway. He looked up the Street of Smiths. He did not see Habbazu. He looked down the Street of Smiths. He did not see Habbazu. If he did not see Habbazu, he did not think Mushezib and Harharu were likely to see Habbazu, either. He went back into the house of Ereshguna and incised fresh syllables on clay with his stylus, meticulously recording the weight of the gold he had given to the caravan guard and the donkeymaster. Whatever else happened, accounts had to balance.
“Accounts have to balance,” Dimgalabzu the smith said at the threshold to the house of Ereshguna. Behind him stood Gulal, his wife, in a pleated shift of white linen, with a gold necklace round her neck, gold hoops in her ears, gold bracelets on her wrists, and gold rings on her fingers. Behind her stood Ningal, similarly dressed, similarly arrayed, with a scarf of filmy stuff draped over her head so that it hung down from either side and held in place by golden hairpins.
“Accounts have to balance,” Ereshguna agreed. Behind him stood Betsilim, his wife, in finery not identical to that of Gulal but conveying a like impression of prosperity. Behind her stood Tupsharru and Nanadirat, also richly dressed, excited grins on their faces. Behind his own brother and sister stood Sharur, a nervous grin on his face. Had he not stood there, had Ningal not come to the house of Ereshguna, all the gathering, all the finery, would have been pointless.