He found a tiny open area in the square of Imhursag, tethered the donkey to a stake driven into the ground not far away, and set out his own trade goods on cloths. That done, he began loudly crying their virtues.
Imhursagut and merchants from other cities and other lands wandered through the market square. Sharur quickly sold several pots of pickled palm hearts to an Imhursaggi tavern keeper. The man said, “Come to my place—I am Elulu—on the Street of Enimhursag’s Elbow, just past the bend. My wife cooks palm hearts in many tasty ways.”
“If I can come, I will come,” Sharur said, bowing. The lie was as smooth as he could make it; he had no intention of going into a street named for any part of Imhursag’s city god.
A couple of women traded him broken bits of bronze and copper for his beads. So did a couple of men, buying for their womenfolk. In such small dealings, the Imhursagut seemed little different from the people of Gibil. Without the eyes of the god on them, they were indeed simply people. They were also rather simple people; Sharur got more for the ornaments from them, and with less haggling, than he would have from Giblut.
Then one of the shaven-headed priests stopped in front of him. The man picked up a knife. He handled it like one knowledgeable of weapons. “This is fine metalwork,” he observed.
“I thank you, sir, that I do.” Sharur laid on the Zuabi accent like a peasant spreading manure thickly over his field.
“I would not have thought Zuabu could claim such skilled smiths.” The priest’s eyes moved back and forth, back and forth, from the blade he held in his hand to Sharur. Enimhursag was staring out of those eyes, too. “Tell me, if you will, whence came this blade. Tell me, if you know, where it was made.”
“He who traded it to me said it came from Aggasher,” Sharur answered. Not only was Aggasher farther from Imhursag than Zuabu, and so less likely to be intimately familiar to Enimhursag and his minion, it was also ruled by its goddess, and so more likely to be pleasing to the god and his priest.
“Aggasher, eh?” The priest felt of the knife. “Well, it could be. Metalworking makes the touch of a god hard to detect. Were it less useful, it would be banned. Perhaps, one day, it shall be banned anyway.” Was that Enimhursag, thinking aloud through the priest’s lips? Not all the sweat running down Sharur’s back sprang from the heat of the day. But then the priest went on, “I have need of a good blade, Zuabi. How much will you try to steal from me for it?”
Against him, Sharur did not bargain so hard as he might have. He did not care to risk drawing Enimhursag’s attention to himself. Even so, he would have been pleased in Gibil with the weight of silver he got for the dagger.
A man with a pot of beer strode through the market square, selling cups of his brew for bits of metal. Sharur gladly drank one. He did not think the beer was as good as they brewed in Gibil. He did not think anything in Imhursag was as good as its Gibli counterpart.
Not long after he gave the clay cup back to the beerseller so the man could refill it for his next customer, a couple of foreigners walked past his little display: Alashkurrut sweltering in their tunics. One of them was colored like a man of Kudurru; the other had lighter, ruddier skin and hair of a woody brown rather than the usual black.
“Good-looking blades there,” the fair one said to the other in their own language. Sharur stood still as a stone and looked stupid, not wanting them to know he understood. The man from the western mountains went on, “They might almost be Gibli work.”
His companion snorted. “Not in this city, Piluliumas,” he said. “This city is Gibil’s foe. No Giblut come here.”
“Piluliumas, I know Gibli blades when I see them,” Luwiyas said stubbornly. He turned to Sharur and spoke in the language of the land between the rivers: “You, trader. Where do these knives come from? What city do these swords call home?”
Bowing, Sharur answered, “I got these blades, knives and swords, in Zuabu. The man who traded them to me said they were made in Aggasher.” Having told that story to the priest, he had to stick by it. Enimhursag might be listening.
“There, you see?” Piluliumas said. “Aggasher, not Gibil.”
But Luwiyas said, “In Zuabu, they will sell you your own head and make a profit on it. In Zuabu, they will sell you someone else’s head and say it is your own and make you believe it. If the god of Zuabu were not a god of thieves himself, his people would steal the jewels from his earrings.” .
Sharur had to work hard to keep his face straight and pretend he did not follow the Alashkurri. Luwiyas’s opinion of Zuabut was identical to his own; the man must have had dealings with them. His friend said, “It could be so, I suppose. They do look like good blades. Shall we see what he wants for them?”
“Not now,” Luwiyas answered. “We have asked about them, so he will seek too much for them. Let us come back tomorrow, as if by chance, and trade as if we do not care. He is no master merchant, or he would have more goods. He will be glad enough to trade with us then.”
His companion bowed. “You are wise. It is good.”
Sharur thought Luwiyas was good, too, his one mistake being the assumption that a chance-met merchant in the market square would not speak his language. The two Alashkurrut went off to disparage someone else’s goods. Sharur had already intended to stay overnight in Imhursag; indeed, to stay in the city whose god hated him until he found answers to the questions Kimash had set him. Now he dared hope he might gain some of those answers sooner than he had expected.
As far as Sharur was concerned, the inn he chose for the night would have been reckoned poor in Alashkurru, a disgrace in Gibil. It was dark and dirty. The food ranged from bad to worse. The room to which the innkeeper showed him was so tiny and smelly and full of bugs, he carried his sacks of trade goods out to the stables and bedded down in the straw beside his donkey.
When the innkeeper refused to give back any part of what he’d paid, he shouted at the man. “You gave me copper for a night’s food,” the Imhursaggi said. “You gave me copper for a night’s lodging. You have had food here. You have lodging here. Shall we go to the god? Shall we let Enimhursag decide?”
“No,” Sharur said quickly. The innkeeper smirked, thinking that meant Sharur admitted justice lay with him. In fact, Sharur admitted nothing of the sort, but let himself be cheated to keep the god’s eye from falling on him.
And, as he drifted toward sleep, he decided that perhaps he was not being cheated after all. He was, in fact, more comfortable than he would have been in that nasty little cubicle. He looked over toward the donkey. Though still without any great love for the stubborn beast, he said, “You are better company than that jackass of an innkeeper.”
The donkey snorted. Sharur rolled over and fell asleep.
Some time later, his eyes came open, or, at least, he saw once more. Was he awake? Did he dream? He did not know. He could not tell. Normally, that alone would have told him he was dreaming. Everything he saw, though, everything he heard and felt and smelled, seemed too vivid, too real, for a dream. Everything seemed too coherent for a dream, too.
But neither was he in the world to which he usually awoke. He watched and marveled. Presently, he grew afraid.
He was moving through a green, growing field of barley. The stalks of grain, though, towered over his head as if they were the oaks and ashes and elms and other trees with peculiar names that grew in the mountain valleys of Alashkurru. Had he grown tiny, or had the barley become huge? He could not tell. He knew only that he had to keep walking through it, for he was going toward ... going toward ... He could not remember what he was going toward, only that getting there was important.