Turtledove, Harry - Novel 12

by Between the Rivers (v2. 1)

  Two days after the caravan forded the river, irrigated land became the exception, dry, scrubby country the rule. There was enough forage for the donkeys; Sharur bartered some of the water-damaged linen for a couple of sheep from a herder driving his flock not far from the road. That night, he and the donkey handlers and guards ate roast mutton with wild garlic. -

  The next morning, they caught up with the caravan from Imhursag.

  Sharur had known they were gaining on the Imhursagut. Had he not taken the detour, they would.have caught them sooner... so long as everything went well at the main river crossing by Aggasher. He doubted that would have happened.

  When the donkeys of the other caravan went from being hoofprints on the road to shapes in front of him, Sharur ordered the guards to don their helmets and carry weapons and shields. “You just can’t tell what the Imhursagut will do,” he told Mushezib. “If Enimhursag wants them to attack us, they will, even if we should outnumber them. A god does what he thinks best for himself first, and worries about his people only afterwards.”

  “I’ve seen that myself, in the wars we’ve fought against Imhursag,” the guard captain said. “The Imhursagut would throw themselves away for no purpose anybody with even a bare keshlu of sense could see. But they think we’re crazy, because each one of us acts for himself instead of as a piece of our god’s plan. Goes to show, you ask me.”

  Goes to show what? Sharur wondered. Instead of asking, he ran a finger along the edge of his bronze spearhead, then tapped the point He nodded to himself. It was as sharp as he could make it.

  Up ahead, the Imhursagut were also arming themselves. Sharur saw shields, spears, swords, bows. The other caravan looked about the same size as his own. If the two crews came to blows, they were liable to wreck each other.

  “It will be as I said in the land ruled by Zuabu,” Sharur declared. “We shall not begin the fight here. But if the Imhursagut begin it, let our cry be, ‘Engibil and no quarter!’ ” The guards nodded. Some of them looked eager to fight. Some did not. All of them looked ready.

  Closer and closer the caravan drew to that from Imhursag. Soon they were within easy bowshot of the rearmost donkeys from the rival city. Almost all the Imhursagut had dropped back to the rear to defend the beasts against the men of Gibil. .

  Sharur strode out ahead of his lead donkey. “Gibil and Imhursag are not at war now!” he shouted. That was true. It was also the most that could be said for relations between the two cities.

  One of the Imhursagut walked back toward him and held up a hand, not in peace but in warning' “Come no farther, Gibli!” he cried. “Halt your donkeys. Do not approach us until you have made known your desires to Enihihursag, the mighty god.”

  “You also halt your donkeys, then,” Sharur said. “We will parley, you and I.” He suppressed a sigh. They would parley: Sharur and the man of Imhursag and Enimhursag himself. It was liable to take a while, for the god would have only a tiny part of his attention directed toward the caravan.

  Sure enough, the Imhursaggi stood as if waiting for orders for several breaths before nodding jerkily and saying, “It shall be as you propose.” He turned back to the rest of the Imhursagut and ordered them to halt. Sharur waved for his followers to come no closer. Then the man from Imhursag demanded, “Why are you pursuing us? The god told us some time ago that you were following in our wake.”

  “We are not pursuing you,” Sharur answered. “We are going our own way, down the same road as you are using, and we happen to be moving rather faster. Let us go by without fighting. You will breathe our dust for a little while, but then it shall be as if we never were.”

  “It could be so,” the man of Imhursag said. But then, while he seemed on the point of adding something more, he suddenly shook his head. “No. Enimhursag does not believe you. You seek to get ahead of us to disrupt our trade with the Alashkurrut.”

  Only the certain knowledge that laughing in a god’s face was dangerous made Sharur hold his mouth closed. The city gods of Kudurru were a provincial lot, Enimhursag more than most. Though his power touched his followers far beyond the land he ruled, he had no true conception of the size of the world and its constituent parts. “Alashkurru is a wide land,” Sharur said soberly. “We can trade in one part of it and you in another. Even if we get there first, it will not matter.”

  “It could be so,” the Imhursaggi said again.

  “If you are a merchant, you will have made the journey to the mountains of Alashkurru yourself,” Sharur said, speaking to the fellow as one man to another: always an uncertain proposition when dealing with folk from a god-ruled city. “You will know for yourself how wide the mountain country is—more like Kudurru as a whole than any one city within the land between the rivers. Your caravan and mine can both trade there.”

  “It could be so,” the man of Imhursag repeated. Sharur started to be angry at him for his stupid obstinacy, but checked himself. He realized the Imhursaggi did not dare— or perhaps simply could not—come straight out and disagree with his god. That did not rouse anger in Sharur, but pity and fear.

  “Let us past you without fighting,” he said gently. “In Engibil’s name, I swear my men will start no quarrel with yours as we go by.”

  “How can you swear in your god’s name?” the Imhursaggi—or was it Enimhursag himself?—asked. “Engibil does not speak through the Giblut. We have seen this, to our cost. The words of the men of your city have only their own wind behind them, not the truth of the gods.”

  For the first time, Sharur realized deep in his belly that he and the rest of the folk of Gibil were as strange and frightening to the Imhursagut as they were to him. “I speak only for myself,” he admitted, “but Engibil is still my god. If I lie in his name, he will punish me.”

  “That has not always been so,” the man of Imhursag replied. But then, abruptly, his whole tone changed. He threw back his head and laughed. When he looked at Sharur, he seemed to look straight through him: Enimhursag was looking out through his eyes. Sharur shivered and reached for Engibil’s amulet. No assault came, though, neither against his body nor against his spirit. “Go on,” the Imhursaggi said, in a voice not quite his own. “Go on! Alashkurru is wide, you say. See if it is wide enough for you.” He laughed again, even less pleasantly than before.

  As quickly as Enimhursag had taken full possession of him, the god released him once more. He staggered a little, then caught himself. Sharur wondered if he would remember what the god had said through him. He proved he did, turning to his own caravan crew and ordering them to move their donkeys to the side of the road to let Sharur and his companions pass. Men of Gibil would have argued. The Imhursagut, feeling the will of their god press on them, obeyed without a word.

  To Sharur, the Imhursaggi spoke as himself once more:

  “Go ahead. You Giblut are always so eager to go ahead, so eager to sniff out a keshlu’s weight of silver in the middle of a dungheap. Go ahead, and see what it profits you now.”

  “What did your god tell you?” Sharur asked. ‘‘Why did he change his mind like that?”

  “I do not know why,” the man of Imhursag answered. “I do not want to know why. I do not need to know why. It is not my place to know why.” He spoke with pride, where Sharur would have been furious at being kept in the dark. “As for what he told me, he told me no more than I told you.”

  Was that true? Sharur wondered. But the Imhursaggi was less naive than some men from god-ruled cities with whom he’d dealt, and so he could not be sure. Muttering under his breath, Sharur went back to his own caravan. “Forward!” he told the guards and donkey handlers, adding, “I have sworn in Engibil’s name that we shall not be the first to start any fight. Be ready for trouble, but begin none yourselves, lest you leave me forsworn.”

  “Do you hear that, you lugs?” Mushezib growled to the guards. He set down his spear for a moment so he could thump his chest with a big, hard fist. “Anybody who gets frisky when he shouldn’t have answers to me afterward
s.” Warily, Sharur led his caravan past the one from Imhursag. The Imhursagut did not attack his men. He had not thought they would, not when Enimhursag, speaking through their leader, had agreed to let him by. They did jeer and hoot and make horrible faces: they obeyed their god, but their manner declared what they'would have done had he given them leave.

  Perhaps they were trying to make the Giblut lose their tempers and begin the fight. Wanting to prevent that, Sharur pointed to the Imhursagut and said, “See the trained monkeys? Aren’t they funny? Why don’t you throw them a few dates, if you’re carrying any in your belt pouches to munch on as we walk?”

  As he’d hoped, the guards and donkey handlers laughed. A couple of them did toss dates to the Imhursagut. Their rivals plainly did not know whether to be glad of the food or angry at the way they received it: Enimhursag did not know, and had not told them. They were still waiting for their god to respond by the time the last of Sharur’s donkeys and the last of his men had passed them by. -

  Harharu said, “That was well done, master merchant’s son. When men from a god-ruled city act in ways they have acted before, they are as quick and clever as we. Give them something new to chew on, even if it be only a date”—he and Sharur smiled at each other—“and they wave their legs in the air like a beetle on its back until their god decides what they should do.”

  “I was hoping that would happen,” Sharur agreed. He raised his voice: “Well done, men. Now the Imhursagut will be breathing our dust and stepping in our donkey droppings all the way to Alashkurru. Let’s step it up for the rest of the day, so we can camp well apart from them.”

  His followers cheered. They complained not at all about moving faster. The donkeys complained, but then the donkeys always complained.

  Sharur picked his campsite that evening with great care. He would not be satisfied until he found a small rise the caravan crew could easily defend against an attack in the night and from which he could see a long way in all directions. “The Imhursagut won’t trouble us here,” Mushezib said, nodding vigorous approval. “They’ll be able to tell we’d give them lumps if they tried it. That’s the best way to keep someone from bothering you.”

  “My thought exactly.” Sharur looked toward the east. He spied what had to be the Imhursaggi camp, fires twinkling like medium-bright stars, a surprising distance away. “We did walk them into the ground this afternoon.”

  “Of course we did.” Mushezib’s massive chest inflated further. “Master merchant’s son, if we can’t outdo the Imhursagut, we aren’t worth much. You tell me if that isn’t

  “Well, of course it is.” Sharur had as much pride in his comrades, the men of his city, as did the guard captain. Walking back to the rest of the guards and the donkey handlers, he asked, “Does anyone have a ghost traveling with him?” He had never thought he would wish his bad- tempered grandfather had joined him on the caravan instead of staying back in Gibil, but he did now.

  Agum the guard looked up from his supper of dried fish and dates. “I do, master merchant’s son. Uncle Buriash guarded a couple of caravans himself, so he likes traveling this road.”

  “That is good. That is very good,” Sharur said. He had never known Agum’s uncle, who therefore might as well not have existed as far as his senses were concerned. “I want him to go back to the camp of the Imhursagut and listen to their talk for a while, to see if he can spy out why their leader—why their god—changed his mind and decided to let us pass. He should also see if he can learn why their leader mocked our chances for good trading in Alashkurru.” Agum cocked his head to one side, listening to the dead man’s voice only he could hear. “He says he’ll be glad to do that, master merchant’s son. He doesn’t like the Imhursagut any better than we do. In one of the wars we fought with them—I don’t quite know which—they stole all his sheep.”

  “Thank you, Buriash, uncle to Agum,” Sharur said. Even if he could not hear the ghost, the ghost could hear him.

  “He says he is leaving now,” Agum reported. “He says he will return with the word you need.”

  Sharur was just sitting down to his own supper when Harharu came wandering over to him. The donkeymaster spat out a date pit, then said, “Sending the ghost out is well done, master merchant’s son. Not many would have thought of it, and it may bring us much profit.” He grimaced and chuckled wryly. “My own ghosts, I’m just as well pleased they’re back in the city far away.”

  “I was thinking the same thing about my grandfather,” Sharur answered.

  Harharu nodded. Because Sharur outranked him, he chose to come round to what he had in mind by easy stages. “Would we not be wise to wonder whether what we do, others might do as well?”

  “Ah,” Sharur said around a mouthful of salt fish. He saw where Harharu was heading. “You may speak frankly with me, donkeymaster. I shall not be offended, I promise.”

  “Many people say that. A few even mean it.” Harharu studied him. “Yes, you may be one of those few. Very well, then: if the Imhursagut think to send a ghost to spy on us, can we trap it?”

  “I suppose we can try,” Sharur answered. “After tonight, it will not matter, for we shall be too far ahead of them for one of their ghosts to catch us up. And now it will be hard for us to tell an Imhursaggi ghost from a curious ghost of the countryside, just as Buriash may well seem such a ghost to them.”

  “What you say is true, master merchant’s son,” Harharu agreed. “And yet—”

  “And yet,” Sharur echoed. He tugged at his beard. “It might be done. A ghost from Imhursag will bear the scent, so to speak, of Enimhursag, where a ghost of the countryside will not.”

  “It is so,” Harharu said. “If you can use this difference without offending the ghosts and demons and gods who make this land their home—”

  “I shall take great care, donkeymaster—believe me in that regard,” Sharur said, and tugged at his beard again. “I think it can be done. You are right. I do not want to offend the unseen things here., I shall make a ppint of letting them know we do not claim this country forever, only for a night.” ,

  “Ah, very good,” Harharu said. “Any man would know you for your father’s son by your resourcefulness.”

  “You are kind to a young man.” Sharur inclined his head in polite gratitude.

  Setting a small pot on the ground out where the light from the fires grew dim, he walked around the encampment, chanting, ‘ ‘Tonight, let the land in this circle belong to the men who follow Engibil. Until the rising of the sun, let the land in this circle belong to the men who follow Engibil. Tonight, let Engibil protect the land in this circle. Until the rising of the sun, let Engibil protect the land in this circle. Tonight, let Engibil ward off and drive away Enimhursag and the things of Enimhursag from the land in this circle. Until the rising of the sun, let Engibil ward off and drive away Enimhursag and the things of Enimhursag from the land in this circle.”

  On he went, slowly, ceremoniously: “Before we, the men who follow Engibil, encamped here, the land in this circle belonged to the unseen things that dwell here always. After we, the men who follow Engibil, depart hence with the rising of the sun, the land in this circle shall again belong to the unseen things that dwell here always. We, the men who follow Engibil, seek only our god’s protection this one night for the land in this circle.”

  He repeated his prayer and his promise the prayer was for the night only over and over again, until he approached the spot from which he had begun the circle. Continuing to chant, he peered around and finally spied the pot he had used to mark his beginning point. With a sigh of relief, he stepped over it and walked on for a few more paces, making certain the circle was complete.

  “That is a good magic, master merchant’s son,” Mush- ezib said when Sharur walked back to the fires. “May we have much profit from it.”

  “May it be so,” Sharur said. His own prayer was that the magic would prove altogether unnecessary, that the Im- hursagut would never think to send a ghostly spy to his camp. He
would not know one way or the other, for he could hardly hope to sense the spirit of a man or woman with whom he had not been acquainted in life.

  He turned to Agum. “Has the ghost of your Uncle Buriash returned from the Imhursaggi camp?”

  “No, master merchant’s son,” the guard replied. “But he wouldn’t be back yet anyhow. He has to go there from here, and then here from there, and he’ll want to listen a good long while in between times. I don’t expect him till after I go to sleep.” He grinned at Sharur. “He’ll yell in my ear then, never fear.”

  Sharur nodded. “He sounds like my grandfather. Good enough. When he does come back, you wake me. I shall want to know what he says as soon as he says it. Why did Enimhursag change his caravan leader’s mind?”

  “I shall obey you like a father,” Agum promised.

  But Sharur woke only with morning twilight the next day. Angrily, he hurried over to Agum. The guard was already up and about, with a worried expression on his face. “I would have wakened you, master merchant’s son, of course I would,” he said. “But Uncle Buriash never came back. I finally went to sleep myself, sure he’d wake me when he returned, but he never did.”

  “Where is he, then? Where can he be?” Sharur uneasily looked eastward, back toward the camp of the Imhursagut.

  “I thought—I was hoping—the circle you made last night might have kept him away,” Agum said.

  Sharur frowned. “I don’t see why it should have. Your uncle’s ghost is no enemy to Engibil, no friend to Enimhursag.” .

  “No, of course not,” Agum said. “Still, I did not want to go beyond the circle and maybe break it to find out if he was waiting there. If he is, I’ll hear about it soon enough.” His chuckle sounded nervous. “First time in a while I’ll be glad to have the old vulture yelling at me, let me tell you.”