“Pride.” Finding the answer, he spoke it aloud, and then addressed his companions: “Show pride, one and all. Do not let the Imhursagut know we are downhearted; do not act like slaves before them. Follow my lead in all I do. If the Imhursagut think we have done well here, it will confuse them. If they think we have made a profit here, it will confuse their god.”
Where nothing else might have served, that raised the caravan crew’s spirits. Putting one over on Enimhursag was sweeter to the Giblut than dates candied in honey, more satisfying than a great bowl of stewed lamb and lentils.
And so, by the time the men of Imhursag realized the men and donkeys approaching them came from the city that was their hated rival, by the time they scurried around and readied themselves for a fight that might or might not come—by that time, Sharur and the caravan guards and the donkey handlers showed new life in their step, new cheer on their faces. Striding out ahead of them, Sharur marched confidently toward the Imhursaggi caravan.
An Imhursaggi came toward him, too: the same man with whom he had spoken on the road to Alashkurru. “Gibil and Imhursag are not at war. Engibil and Enimhursag are not at war,” Sharur said. “Let us by in peace. We shall let you by in peace. We are homeward-bound.”
The Imhursaggi cocked his head to one side, as if listening. Listening he was, to no voice Sharur could hear, to no voice Sharur cared to hear. Having learned the will of his god, he answered, “We shall let you go in peace. Go home to your city, Gibli; go home with your tail between your legs.”
“When I get home to Gibil, I shall thrust my tail between the legs of my Imhursaggi slave woman,” Sharur retorted. “Why do you mock me? Why do you insult me? May you make as much profit on your journey as I have made on mine.”
He knew how he meant that. He did not think the man of Imhursag would. He did not think Enimhursag would, either, when the god heard the words through the man’s ears. He proved right on both counts. Angrily, the Imhursaggi said, “Profit? How can you have made a profit?”
“Why do you ask? Don’t you know how yourself?” Sharur’s smile was easy, lazy, happy, as if he had just had the Imhursaggi slave. He knew how much effort holding that smile on his face required. By holding it there, he hoped to keep the man of Imhursag from seeing that effort.
And he succeeded. Swarthy though the Imhursaggi merchant was, he flushed angrily. “You cannot have made a profit in the Alashkurru Mountains!” he shouted. “You cannot! The gods of this country hate you. They know what Giblut are. They know what Giblut do.”
Sharur’s smile only got wider. With a shrug, he answered, “Enimhursag hates the men of Gibil, but we trade all through Kudurru, and make good profits. We do not trade with Enimhursag. We trade with men. We do not trade with the gods of this country, either. We trade with men.”
From dark and ruddy, the merchant of Imhursag went pale. He understood what Sharur was saying. Enimhursag understood what Sharur was saying, too. “You have made the Alashkurrut into Giblut—men who cheat the gods,” the merchant gasped.
“They will tell you otherwise,” Sharur said. “They will insist it is not so. They will deny they ever traded with me. They will sound as if you should believe them. But how will you know for certain whether they speak the truth?”
“You are worse than a demon of the desert places,” the Imhursaggi said, horror in his eyes—a horror that was a window into a place deeper and darker than the bottom of his own spirit, a window into all the fears Enimhursag felt. Putting the god of Imhursag in fear felt almost as good as making a profit would have done. Almost.
“We shall go by now,” Sharur said. “We shall go by in peace now. I told you once and now I tell you twice, man of Imhursag: may you profit here as I have profited here.” He wondered if Enimhursag would change his mind and order the Imhursagut to attack his men rather than letting them pass in peace. The merchant with whom he spoke evidently wondered the same thing, for he stood poised, his eyes far away, awaiting any orders his god might give. No orders came. The merchant slumped, ever so slightly. “We shall let you go by in peace. Go home to your city.”
As warily as they had west of the Yarmuk, the caravan from Gibil and that from Imhursag sidled past each other. The Imhursagut scowled frightful scowls at Sharur and his companions. At his command, his own guards and donkey handlers did their best to pretend the caravan crew from the other city did not exist. Not a word was said on either side.
Continuing east, back toward Kudurru, back toward Gibil, Sharur looked over his shoulder. Looking at him was the Imhursaggi merchant who led the other caravan. When their eyes met, the man of Imhursag flinched, as if from a blow. Quickly, he turned his gaze in another direction.
Sharur told his own caravan crew how he had confused both the Imhursaggi merchant and Enimhursag. His fellow Giblut laughed and cheered and clapped him on the back. Harharu said, “The only way the tale could be better, master merchant’s son, would be for our donkeys in truth to be heavily laden with copper and ore and the other goods of Alashkurru.”
“If the Alashkurrut were like us—if they truly were their own men first and took care of their gods to keep them quiet—we would be heavily laden with copper and ore and the other goods of Alashkurru,” Sharur said, from out of a strange place halfway between frustrated fury and amusement. “But they are not, worse luck. And so Enimhursag wins this game.” And so I lose it. That was even more to the point.
“But Enimhursag, stupid ugly blind fool of a god that he is, doesn’t even know he’s won,” Mushezib said with a scornful laugh. “He’s back there in his temple in Imhursag, hiding under the throne with his thumb in his mouth.”
Such cheerful blasphemy, aimed at a god Sharur despised above all others, was bracing as a draught of strong wine. And the guard captain was likely to be right; Enimhursag’s followers had been well and truly fooled, which meant, at such a remove from his own land, that their god was also almost sure to be well and truly fooled. That gave Sharur some consolation: some, but not enough.
As the caravan wound its way out of the mountains of Alashkurru toward the lower, flatter land to the east, eerie laughter floated down out of the sky. Sharur stared this way and that, but could not spy the demon.' Nevertheless, he shook his fist and cried out, “I curse you, Illuyankas demon of this land, by your name I curse you for mocking me. May you eat the bread of death for mocking me, Illuyankas demon of this land; may you drink the beer of dying. May your face turn pale, like a cut-down tamarisk, Illuyankas demon of this land; may your lips turn dark, like a bruised reed. May the gods smite you with the might of their land. I curse you, Illuyankas demon of this land, by your name I curse you for mocking me.”
Only silence after that, silence and the sound of the breeze sighing through saplings. “That is a strong curse, master merchant’s son,” Harharu said, “a strong curse, but one you shaped with care.”
Sharur nodded. “Yes. Not having seen Illuyankas, I cannot be certain that demon is the one whose laughter we heard. I would not lay a curse on a demon for something of which that demon is innocent. If Illuyankas was not the demon mocking us, the curse will not bite.”
As always, the herders who roamed the land beyond the reach of life-giving water from the Yarmuk and its lesser tributaries eyed the caravan as a hawk overhead eyed a shape on the ground, wondering whether it was a hare that would be easy to kill or a fox that would fight back. The guards carried their shields and their weapons and wore their helmets, suggesting that any of the wanderers who might attack would pay dearly.
The lean, fierce herders were persuaded. When they approached Sharur’s donkey train, it was to trade sheep and cattle for trinkets. “You will have nothing better for us than the scraps of your goods, not coming east from out of the mountains,” one of their leathery chieftains said. “It is always thus—the men of Kudurru gain more for their goods in the mountains than here, and more for the goods of the mountains in Kudurru than here. This leaves us with little but what we take for ourselves.” His eyes were bright and fierce and avid.