Sharur and Nasibugashi walked through the fields south of the village toward the canal that marked the border between Imhursaggi land and Gibli. The peasants working in those fields waved to Sharur almost as Munnabtu had done. When he entered Imhursaggi territory, their only thought had been to kill him. Now, because their god was well pleased with him, they, too, were well pleased with him.
On the southern side of the canal, Gibli peasants performed similar labor in similar fields with tools also similar save that rather more of them were bronze and rather fewer stone. Curious as magpies, they looked up from their work to see what the two men on the Imhursaggi bank of the waterway would do.
What Sharur did was slide off his kilt and shake his feet out of his sandals. After a moment, Nasibugashi imitated him. Together, the two men stepped naked into the warm, muddy waterway of the canal.
About halfway across, Nasibugashi let out a soft exclamation of surprise. “The god’s voice fades in my ears,” he murmured. “The god’s presence fades from my mind. I am alone within myself, as I have never been before.” He cocked his head to one side, as if listening internally. “I do not feel Engibil trying to fill the emptiness the loss of Enimhursag has left behind.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Sharur agreed. “Engibil isn’t— there—all the time, the way Enimhursag is.” Remembering the times when Engibil had spoken in his mind, he wished the god made his presence known even less often.
When the two men came up onto the Gibli side of the canal, peasants loped toward them. The peasants who had been working in the fields of Imhursag came down to the bank of the canal and stared across with round, wide eyes to see what sort of reception Sharur and Nasibugashi got.
“What are you two doing here?” one of the Gibli peasants asked. Unlike Imhursagut, he and his comrades seemed more interested in the new arrivals than angry about them. “Don’t often see people coming this way, where their god can’t yell in their ear all the time.” He spoke with good-natured contempt.
“It’s not so bad,” Nasibugashi said. Sharur nodded; Enimhursag had indeed made a good choice in him. A more god-assotted Imhursaggi—a priest, say—would have been as bereft as a canal fish suddenly thrown up on land.
“What about you?” the peasant asked Sharur.
“I don’t think it’s so bad, either,” Sharur said. “Shall we get out of the reach of all the big, staring eyes?” He nodded toward the Imhursaggi peasants, through whose eyes and ears Enimhursag was no doubt seeing and hearing.
One of those Imhursaggi peasants would have failed to understand what he meant, would have made him explain more than he wanted to explain, more than would have been wise to explain. As he had hoped they would be, as he had thought they would be, the Giblut were quicker on the uptake. “All right, we’ll go for a walk,” their leader said.
The Imhursagut kept staring after them. After a bowshot or so, they went up and over a tiny hillock, so that the border canal and the Imhursagut on the other side of it were no longer visible.
Sharur pointed to Nasibugashi and said, in bright, conversational tones, “This man is an Imhursaggi spy. You should seize him.”
With commendable quickness, the Gibli peasants did just that. With equally commendable quickness, they also seized Sharur. Their leader asked, “And why should we listen to you, whoever you are?”
“Because, sometime before nightfall, Imhursag’s army will swarm over the canal,” Sharur answered. “Enimhursag sent us ahead to spy out the land.”
Nasibugashi’s eyes looked as if they would bug out of his head. “You betray the god!” he gasped. A moment later, he found something even more appalling to say: “You deceived the god!”
His horror convinced the Giblut to take Sharur seriously. That horror probably did a better job of convincing them to take Sharur seriously than anything he could have managed on his own. The peasant who had been doing the talking for his comrades asked, “Who are you, anyhow?”
“I am Sharur, the son of Ereshguna the master merchant,” Sharur answered, which made Nasibugashi’s eyes get even wider. Back in the lands of his own city, Sharur smiled an enormous smile. “I have indeed betrayed the god of Imhursag. I have indeed deceived the god of Imhursag.”
“It is well done!” the peasant cried. He and his friends pounded Sharur on the back for fooling the god of the rival city. Sharur wondered what they would have done had they known he had fooled Enimhursag into launching an attack on Gibil.
“How did you deceive the god?” Nasibugashi asked. He sounded half astonished that Sharur should have imagined such a thing, let alone accomplished it, half curious to learn his exact method.
“Never mind.” Sharur spoke to the Gibli peasants: “Spread the word that the Imhursagut are coming. Women and children should flee, men should get weapons, harry the invaders, and fall back on the main army, which will, I have no doubt, muster between the city and the invaders.”
Some of the peasants—those who had been standing around and those who had been holding Sharur—dashed off to do as he had asked. Nasibugashi stared again. “Does not the god of Gibil tell his people what needs doing?” he said, astonished again.
Sharur and the peasants who still held the Imhursaggi noble looked at one another and started to laugh. “Sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn’t,” Sharur answered. “Sometimes the people figure out what needs doing before the god does.”
“How can this be?” Nasibugashi cried in honest bewilderment.
“Not hard at all,” one of the peasants answered with another chuckle. “Engibil is that kind of god—and we are that kind of people.”
“Be gentle with this one, as gentle as you can,” Sharur told them. “For an Imhursaggi, he is very much his own man. Had he been born in Gibil, he would be his own man. Had he been born in Gibil, he might well be a great man.”
“As you say it, master merchant’s son, it shall be,” the peasant said. “What shall we do with him now?”
“A good question.” Sharur had not thought past laying hold of Nasibugashi. He spoke in thoughtful tones: “He is my captive. Perhaps I shall make him my slave and have him serve me.”
The Gibli peasants burst into laughter. The Imhursaggi noble burst into curses as vile as any Sharur had ever heard from caravan guards or donkey handlers. The curses made the Gibli peasants laugh louder.
Sharur said, “Or, perhaps, I shall see whether his kin or his god care to ransom him. He is a clever man; he would make a clever slave, and might escape. He is a bold man; he would make a bold slave, and might seek to slay me. For now, let us take him back to Gibil. We can decide his fate there.”
“It shall be as you say,” the peasants said as one. And then, almost as one, they went on, “Master merchant’s son, you will reward us for helping you take him to the city?”
“I shall reward you for helping me take him to the city,” Sharur promised. “The house of Ereshguna does not stint.”
“No,” Nasibugashi said bitterly. “The house of Ereshguna cheats.”
“It is not so,” Sharur said. “I am a Gibli. I serve my own needs. I serve the needs of Gibil. I serve the needs of Engibil.”
“You are a Gibli,” Nasibugashi agreed. “You put the needs of your god last. Were you a proper man, you would put those needs first.”
“I am a proper man. I am a proper Gibli,” Sharur said. “Now your god is out of your mind, Nasibugashi. Perhaps you, too, will learn to be a man first, a creature of the gods only afterwards.” .
Nasibugashi did not answer. Sharur studied him. Of all the Imhursagut he had met, this noble was the first who indeed might learn to be a man before he was a creature of the gods. Sharur wondered if his wisest course might not be to keep Nasibugashi in Gibil for a time, to let him learn what living in a city full of men who were their own men was like, and then to let him return to Imhursag, to see if he might sow the seeds of such a city under Enimhursag’s nose.