Turtledove, Harry - Novel 12

by Between the Rivers (v2. 1)

  “I thank you, father of my intended,” Sharur said, bowing.

  “Father, what did you see and hear at the encampment close by the border with Imhursag?” Ningal asked. “You have said nothing of this.”

  “Nor shall I say anything of this, not now,” Dimgalabzu answered. “I shall tell you in full one day, but not today.” He turned to Sharur. “Were you wise, son of Ereshguna, to embroil my family in this without my leave?” He had made his own guesses about the cup and its provenance, guesses liable to be good.

  Sharur bowed again, apologetically. “Perhaps I was not wise, father of my intended, but I could not have embroiled your family with your leave, for, as Ningal your daughter has said, you were at the encampment close by the border with Imhursag. No harm has come of it, for which I am very glad.” He spoke nothing but the truth there.

  Dimgalabzu let out another grunt. Sharur’s words were not quite an apology, but were soft enough to make it hard for the smith to take offense. “Let it go,” Dimgalabzu said yet again. “Take that cup out of here, and let it be as if that cup had never been here.”

  “So may it be,” Sharur said.

  “So may it be,” Ereshguna echoed.

  “So may it be,” Habbazu said, adding, “May the god of Gibil always reckon this cup has never been here. May the god of Gibil never learn where this cup has been.” That prayer brought a fresh chorus of “So may it be!” from everyone else in the room.

  Sharur, Ereshguna, and Habbazu bowed first to Dimgalabzu and then to Ningal. They left the house of Dimgalabzu. Sharur wanted to run back to the house of Ereshguna, to minimize the time during which the Alashkurri cup was out on the Street of Smiths. But running might have drawn the notice of other men on the Street of Smiths, and might also have drawn the notice of Engibil. Sharur walked, and walked sedately, keeping up a front no less than he did in a dicker.

  When he and his father and the master thief reached the house of Ereshguna, though, he did sigh once, loud and long, with relief. So did Ereshguna. So did Habbazu. Ereshguna asked, “Where will you now put this cup, son? What place have we that can match the house of a smith for holding such things safe?”

  “We still have a pot or two of Laravanglali tin, have we not?” Sharur asked. He did not wait for his father to reply; he knew where the metal was stored. He carried the cup over to one of the big clay pots, opened it, set the cup inside on the dark gray nodules of tin, and replaced the lid.

  “It is good.” Ereshguna nodded. “It is very good. The presence of metal makes a god as shortsighted as a mortal man. Tin is especially good since it has such power of its own, the power to strengthen copper into strong, hard bronze even though tin is neither strong nor hard itself.”

  Habbazu also nodded approval. “This hiding place will indeed conceal the cup from a searching god,” he said. “The question of what to do with the cup now that it is back in our hands still remains.”

  Another question that still remained, as far as Sharur was concerned, was how to make sure the cup did not come into Habbazu’s hands alone. The master thief might yet repair his position with Enzuabu if he brought the cup to his own city god—and if he could sneak it past Engibil, assuming Engibil was still watching the western border of Gibli territory and had not lazily gone back to fornicating with courtesans in his house on earth.

  Ereshguna said, “If we break the cup, it stays forever broken. We must think hard before undertaking a step that may not be revoked.”

  “This is so,” Habbazu said. “The very idea of breaking the cup, the very idea of choosing my will over the will of the gods, turns my liver green with fear.”

  “You would break something that belongs to the gods?” In Sharur’s ears—and no doubt in Ereshguna’s ears as well—the voice of Sharur’s grandfather’s ghost was a frightened screech. “Are you mad? What will your punishment be when the gods learn of what you have done?”

  “They are only foreign gods, ghost of my grandfather,” Sharur said in the mumble mortals used to talk with a ghost when other mortals who could not hear that ghost were present. “And, if we break this thing, the foreign gods will not have the power to punish us.”

  “Foreign gods!” Now Sharur’s grandfather’s ghost let out a disdainful sniff. “You have no business dealing with foreign gods in the first place. Leave them alone and pray they leave you alone, is all I can say.”

  Ereshguna sighed. “Ghost of my father,” he said in a mumble like Sharur’s, “when you lived among men, you traveled to the mountains of Alashkurru. You dealt with the Alashkurrut. You dealt with the gods of the Alashkurrut. We follow in the footsteps you laid down.”

  Habbazu could follow only one side of the conversation, but smiled in a way suggesting he had no trouble figuring out the other side. Sharur’s grandfather’s ghost said, “Aye, I traveled to the mountains of Alashkurru. Aye, I dealt with the Alashkurrut. Aye, I dealt with the gods of the Alashkurrut. And I hated the mountains of Alashkurru. They were too high and rugged. I hated the Alashkurrut. They were too haughty and foreign. I hated the gods of the Alashkurrut. They were even more haughty and even more foreign. I would sooner have had nothing to do with any of them.” Sharur schooled his features to stay straight. Laughing at a ghost who complained about how things had been while he yet lived was rude. But Sharur recalled how many times his grandfather, while a living man, had told him stories of the Alashkurrut, stories that showed far more lively interest than hatred. Pointing that out now would be useless, so he stayed quiet.

  Ereshguna said, “Nothing is yet decided, ghost of my father. Nothing will be decided today, I do not think. We shall take time for thought, and then do as we reckon best.”

  “It is the Zuabi who led you into this,” the ghost said shrilly. “It is the Zuabi who sneaked into Engibil’s temple. This thing you think of breaking must be the thing he thought of stealing. He is a foreigner, too, and has no business in Gibil.” The ghost roared like a lion, as if seeking to frighten Habbazu away. But Habbazu could not hear him, and stayed where he was.

  “All will be well, ghost of my grandfather,” Sharur said. “Truly, all will be well.”

  Habbazu still looked as troubled as the ghost sounded. “I am afraid,” he said. “All choices look bad to me now. To take the cup back to the mountains, to smash it—both fill me with dread. Even taking it to Enzuabu, as I had first thought to do, sets me to trembling like a leaf in the wind.”

  “We can act in our own interest and be free, or we can be tools of the gods,” Sharur said. “Do you see a third choice, master thief?” .

  “If you leave only those choices, doing either the one thing or the other, no,” Habbazu answered. “But could it not be that what is best for the gods will also prove best for mortal men?”

  “A good question,” Ereshguna said.

  “A very good question,” Sharur’s grandfather’s ghost agreed, so loudly that Sharur was almost surprised Habbazu could not hear him. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe not all Zuabut are cheats and fools all the time.”

  Maybe you approve of this Zuabi’s words because he says things like the things you say, Sharur thought. But he did not argue with the ghost of his grandfather. He saw no point to arguing with the ghost of his grandfather. Arguing with a mortal man rarely changed his mind. Arguing with a ghost was a waste of breath.

  After some thought, Sharur spoke to Habbazu: “What you say could be, master thief. We ourselves would draw great benefit from doing as the gods desire. But would our sons and grandsons, would their sons and grandsons, thank us for it?”

  “I do not know,” Habbazu replied. “I can not know. Neither do you know. Neither can you know. But I see you are trying to think like a god, to think of what will be long after you are gone.” The master thief sighed. “I honor you for the effort. Let us think on this once more until morning, and then, if we have not found some compelling reason to change our course ... let us break the cup.”

  “Father?” Sharur asked.

  Ereshg
una also sighed. “Habbazu has spoken well. Let us think on this once more until morning, and then ...” He did not say the words, as Habbazu had said them, but he nodded. His eyes went to the jar of tin nodules wherein the Alashkurri cup rested. So did Habbazu’s. And so did Sharur’s.

  Sharur knew he lay sleeping on the mat on the roof of the house of Ereshguna. He did not seem to be there, though. He seemed to have returned to the company of the gods of the Alashkurru Mountains. He was not afraid. For one thing, he half expected—more than half expected—the Alashkurri gods would bring this dream to him otjce more. For another, he knew it was only a dream. Nothing bad—nothing too bad—could happen to him in a dream.

  “Why do you hate us so?” Fasillar demanded. She folded her arms over her bulging belly, as if to say without words, How can you hate someone who aids in bringing new life into the world?

  The question was one that had a great many possible answers, as far as Sharur was concerned. He chose the softest one he could find. Yes, this was only a dream. Yes, the Alashkurri gods had scant power here. But they were gods, and power was what made them gods. “I do not hate you, gods of the Alashkurrut,” he said.

  “Then why do you seek to tamper with that which is not yours?” rumbled Tarsiyas, all shining in his armor of copper.

  “Why do you not return that which is not yours to those to whom it rightly belongs?” Fasillar added.

  “Why did you gods make life so hard for Giblut in the mountains of Alashkurru?” Sharur returned. “Why have all the gods made life so hard for Giblut outside of Gibil?”

  “Because you took that which was not yours to take,” Tarsiyas said angrily. “Because some fool of a mortal gave you that which was not his to give. Because—” He started to go on, but checked himself.

  Fasillar said, perhaps, that which he had begun to say but which he had held back: “Because, in taking that which was not yours to take, you have put us, the great gods of the Alashkujrut, in fear. It is not right that mortals should put the great gods in fear.”

  “No, indeed. It is not right,” Tarsiyas echoed. He shook his fist in the direction from which Sharur was perceiving him. “What is right is that the great gods should put mortals in fear. That is the natural order of things. That is how things should be. That is how things must be.” He shook his fist again.

  If he thought his bombast and ferocious bluster were putting Sharur in fear, he was right. If he thought bombast and bluster would make Sharur more inclined to send the cup back to the mountains of Alashkurru, he was wrong.

  Fasillar must have sensed as much, for the Alashkurri goddess of birth put on her face a look of such pleading, such piteousness, that even Sharur, knowing full well the expression was assumed, could hardly resist melting under it. “Will you not do as you should?” she said. “Will you not do as we ask? Would you deprive the Alashkurrut of the overlords they need? Would you deprive them of the gods they cherish?”

  Sharur thought of Huzziyas the wanax, who so wanted to trade with the Giblut that he was willing to do so by subterfuge. Only when Tarsiyas directly forbade him to engage in such trade had he desisted. Did he need the gods as overlords? Did he cherish them? Sharur had his doubts.

  “Do you think we cannot take vengeance if you seek to harm us?” Tarsiyas said now. “Do you think we shall have no power left with which to punish anyone who tries to do us wrong?”

  That was exactly what Sharur thought. That was exactly what Kessis and Mitas, the small gods of the Alashkurrut, had told him. Had they not told him, he would have thought so anyhow. The way the great gods of the Alashkurrut were behaving said more plainly than any overt words how much they feared being brought low were the cup to break.

  “You have spoken much,” Sharur said. “Will you answer now a question of mine?”

  “You may ask it,” Fasillar said. “Whether we answer and how we answer will depend on what it is.”

  “I understand,” Sharur said. That was, as far as he could see, the first sensible response the gods of the Alashkurrut had given him. “Here is my question, then: why did you set so much of your power in this one cup?”

  “To keep it hidden,” Fasillar replied at once. “To keep it secure. To keep it stored away where no one, god or man, would think to look for it.” The goddess’s mouth twisted. “This worked less well than we hoped it would.”

  “To keep any cowardly wretch from stealing it,” Tarsiyas added. “This also worked less well than we hoped it would.”

  “From all that I have heard, from all that I have seen, from all that I have learned, this cup was not stolen from the mountains of Alashkurru,” Sharur said. “This cup was fairly given in trade by an Alashkurri to a Gibli, and so it came to Gibil.”

  “This cup was given by an idiot,” Tarsiyas roared. “This cup was given by a fool. This cup was given by a dolt whose mother was a sow and whose father was a lump of dung. Speak to me not of the man by whom this cup was given.” The god’s face turned the color of his burnished copper armor. Sharur wondered if a god could suffer a fit of apoplexy. Had Tarsiyas been a man, Sharur would have judged him ripe for one.

  Fasillar took a gentler line: “Mortal, you can not deny that this cup was stolen from the temple in which it was placed. You can not deny it was raped away from the god’s house in which it dwelt. This was not right. This was not just. The cup should be restored to us, its rightful owners.”

  In his dream, Sharur bowed. “Goddess, you cannot deny that we Giblut and the city of Gibil have suffered harm for what one of us did unwittingly. This was not right. This was not just. We are entitled to compensation or we are entitled to vengeance. When a surgeon cuts a man with an abscessed eye and causes him to lose the eye, the surgeon pays compensation or has his hand cut off. The victim and his family choose the penalty. That is right. That is just.”

  “We have offered compensation,” Fasillar said. “We can offer more. Come to the mountains of Alashkurru, and we shall fill the packs of your donkeys with copper ore. We shall fill them with copper. We shall fill them with silver. We shall fill them with gold. The mountains of Alashkurru are rich in metals. We shall share the riches with the men of Gibil.”

  Tarsiyas turned his angry face toward Fasillar. “No!” the war god shouted at the goddess of birth. “The Giblut are liars. The Giblut are thieves. The Giblut will make our own people like unto them if they keep coming into the mountains of Alashkurru. What good will it do us to have our cup back when in two generations our own people will be made like unto the Giblut? They will learn to ignore us. They will learn to pay us no heed.”

  “If we have not the cup back, if the cup be shattered, they will pay us no heed in less time than two generations,” Fasillar answered. “How can we do anything but deal with the Giblut, and with this Gibli in particular? What choice have we?”

  “But the Gibli will not deal with us!” Tarsiyas howled.

  “Not if you keep trying to put him in fear,” Fasillar said.

  “That has nothing to do with it,” Tarsiyas said, which was in large measure true. “The Giblut have grown too used to taking gods lightly. They think themselves equal to gods. They think themselves superior to gods. Worse: they think themselves in no need of noticing gods. Have they tried to steal, have they tried to destroy, Engibil’s store of power? No! They have not even bothered. They—”

  “Be still,” Fasillar snarled, growing angry in turn. “Be still, or we shall see a generation of nothing but women born in the mountains. Who will fight your precious wars then, when women have too much sense for them?”

  Tarsiyas shut up with a snap. Sharur had no idea whether Fasillar could do such a thing. He did not know whether Tarsiyas had any such idea, either. The Alashkurri war god was not inclined to take the chance, though, which struck Sharur as uncommonly sensible of him.

  Fasillar turned her attention back to Sharur. “What will you do, man of Gibil?” she asked. “Will you take the road that leads to riches and delight, or will you run wild into cha
os and madness and danger?”

  Tarsiyas also started to say something to Sharur. Fasillar sent a sharp glance toward her fellow deity. Tarsiyas said not a word. Had he been Tarsiyas, Sharur also would have said not a word. Fasillar looked in his direction once more, awaiting his reply.

  He did not want to come straight out and defy a god. He did not dare to come straight out and defy a god. Neither was he altogether certain he ought to defy the gods of the Alashkurrut. “I will do that which seems best to me,” he said slowly.

  All at once, he was awake on the roof, under the stars. He wondered whether that meant the gods of the Alashkurrut had believed him or despaired of him. He wondered, too, which they should have done.

  12

  There on the counter, beside the scale that weighed out gold and silver, copper and tin, stood the snake-decorated clay cup from the Alashkurru Mountains. Sharur had gone downstairs to check on it and take it from the pot of tin after he woke from his dream, fearful lest Habbazu should have stolen it either for reasons of his own or because of urgings from the gods too strong for him to withstand.

  But the Zuabi thief had not disturbed the cup in the night. Now, in the clear light of morning, he stared at it along with Sharur and Ereshguna and Tupsharru. Sharur’s eyes went for a moment from the cup to the scales close by. The cup was more precious than anything he or his father or his brother set on the balance pans of the scale, but its value was not measured in keshlut.

  “Now we come down to it,” Ereshguna said in a heavy voice.

  “I am afraid. I am not ashamed to admit I am afraid,” Habbazu said. Beside him, Tupsharru sipped on a cup of beer and nodded.

  “I am also afraid,” Sharur said. “But I have grown tired of being afraid.” Afraid of the gods, was what he meant, but he was also afraid to say that aloud. His father and brother and the Zuabi thief understood him: of that he was sure. He went on, “I would like to set men free. To how many is that chance given?”