“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 point 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,” Mushezib 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 Imhursagut 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.”
“I know what you mean.” Sharur slapped the guard on the back. “The circle will break of itself when Shumukin brings the sun up into the sky. Then Buriash can harangue you to his heart’s content.”
The sun rose. The caravan headed off toward the west once more. But Uncle Buriash did not return to Agum when the circle of magic was broken. Agum never heard Uncle Buriash’s voice again. All that day, and for days to come, Sharur kept looking back in the direction of the caravan from Imhursag. What he felt was something uncommonly like fear.
The land rose and, rising, grew rough. Streams dwindled. Near them, a few farmers scratched out a meager living. The land a little farther from them could have been brought under the plow, too, had anyone dug canals out to it Not enough people lived along the streams to make the work worthwhile.
Instead, herders drove large flocks of cattle and sheep— larger than any in crowded Kudurru—through the grass and brush that grew without irrigation. Lean, rough-looking men, they watched the caravan with hungry eyes. Guards and donkey handlers and Sharur himself always went armed. TJianks to Mushezib, the guards acted as tough and swaggering as the herdsmen, and so had no trouble with them.
“You can’t let them think you’re afraid of ’em,” Mushezib said to Sharur one evening. “If they get that idea into their heads, they’ll jump on you like a lion on a lame donkey.”
“Yes, I’ve seen that,” Sharur said. “The Alashkurrut are the same way.” His eyes went to the west This country blended almost seamlessly with the foothills of the Alashkurru Mountains. He sighed. “Another few days of traveling and only a few folk, the folk who make a habit of trading with us, will speak our language. The rest will use the words of the Alashkurrut.”
Mushezib used a word of the Alashkurrut, a rude word. He laughed a loud, booming laugh. “A guard doesn’t need to know much more. ‘Beer.’ ‘Woman.’ ‘Bread,’ maybe. ‘How much?’ ‘No, too much.’ Those do the job.”
“I suppose so.” Almost, Sharur wished he could live a life as simple as Mushezib’s. When all went well, the guard captain had little more to do than walk all day and, when evening came, have someone give him food and beer and silver besides, so he could buy a woman’s company for the night or whatever else he happened to want. To a peasant living in drudgery the whole year through, that would seem a fine life indeed. It had seemed so to Mushezib, who had made it real for himself, just as at the beginning of days the great gods had made the world real from the thought in their minds.
For Sharur, though, the reality Mushezib had made from his thought was not enough. The guard captain cared about no one past himself, about nothing more than getting through one day after another. When he died, his ghost would not remain long upon the earth, for who would remember him well enough for the spirit’s voice to linger in his ears?
Sharur walked down to the edge of the little nameless stream (nameless to him, anyhow; whatever god or goddess dwelt in it had never drawn his notice) and scooped up a handful of muddy clay. Mushezib followed, saying, “What are you doing, master merchant’s son? Oh, I see—making a tablet. What have you found here that you need to write?”