“I am lucky you are with me,” Habbazu said. “Were I alone, that footpad might have set on me, for I am not large, and I look like easy meat.” Suddenly, even in darkness, the edge of a dagger glittered in his hand. “A serpent is not large, either, and looks like easy meat. But a serpent has fangs, and so have I.”
“I have seen your fangs,” Sharur said. “So have the Imhursagut.” He pointed ahead, and felt foolish a moment later: Engibil’s temple could not have been anything but what it was. “We draw near.”
“Yes.” Habbazu had not been making much noise. Now, abruptly, he made none at all. He might have been a ghost, walking along beside Sharur. Truly, a master thief had talents of his own.
Sharur looked up and up, toward the god’s chamber at the top of the temple. No light streamed out from its doors. Engibil was not in residence at the moment. Before Sharur could point that out to Habbazu, the thief waved him into a patch of deep shadow, nodded a farewell, and slid soundlessly toward the temple.
Torches burned outside the main entranceway. Guards paced outside the main entranceway. Sharur wondered how Habbazu could hope to get in unseen. But Habbazu, apparently, did not wonder.
No cries rose from the temple guards. Whatever Habbazu was doing, it seemed to work. Sharur stood in the deep shadow and waited. He had no idea how long the thief would need to enter the temple, to find the cup, and to escape. He was not altogether sure whether Habbazu could do that, or whether he would face the wrath of Engibil’s priesthood and perhaps of the god himself. Again, though, Habbazu would not have attempted the theft without confidence he would succeed.
As Sharur waited, he stared up at the heavens. Slowly, slowly, the stars moved over that blue-black dome. The star everyone in the land between the rivers knew as Engibil’s star was not in the sky. Sharur took that as a good omen: the god could not peer down from his heavenly observation platform and see Habbazu sneaking toward and into his temple.
Had the men who guarded that temple been caravan guards, they would from time to time have come out to check the shadowy places not far from the entrance to make sure no one skulked in them. They did not. They paced back and forth, back and forth. Perhaps they did not believe anyone would dare to try to sneak past them. Had Sharur been one of them, perhaps he would not have believed anyone would dare to try to sneak past, either.
He yawned. He was not used to being out by night, out in the darkness. The darkness was the time for men to sleep. The night was the time for men to lie quiet. It would not have taken much for Sharur to lie quiet against the wall. It would not have taken much for him to sleep.
He yawned again. The stars had wheeled some way through the sky. He glanced toward the east. No, no sign of morning twilight yet. He did not think he had been waiting long enough for the sky to begin to go gray, but he was starting to have trouble being sure.
Then, without warning, his grandfather’s ghost shouted in his ear: “Be ready, boy! The thief comes!”
“Has he got the cup?” Sharur whispered, excitement flooding through him and washing away drowsiness as the spring floods of the Yarmuk and the Diyala washed away the banks of canals.
“What? The cup?” his grandfather’s ghost repeated. “No, he hasn’t got the cursed cup. He is pursued, boy—pursued. He’ll be lucky to make it this far, is what he’ll be.”
“I did not think you wanted anything to do with him,” Sharur said. “I did not think you wanted to go with him into the temple.”
“I did not want anything to do with him,” the ghost answered. “I did not want to go with him into the temple. But you are flesh of my flesh: flesh of the flesh I once had. You were bound and determined to go through with this mad scheme. Since you were bound and determined to go through with his mad scheme, I had to help you as I could, even if I had said I would not.”
“For this I thank you, ghost of my grandfather,” Sharur said.
“Do not thank me yet,” the ghost said. “You are not safe yet. I have no flesh. I had no trouble leaving Engibil’s temple. The thief is a living man. He will not find it so easy.”
“What will they do to him if they catch him?” Sharur asked.
“Maybe they will simply kill him,” his grandfather’s ghost replied. “Maybe they will torture him and then kill him. Maybe they will torture him and then save him for Engibil’s justice, for whatever time in which Engibil decides to mete out his justice. Whatever they choose to do, the house of Ereshguna will fare better if they have not got this choice to make.”
“Ghost of my grandfather, you speak truly,” Sharur said with a shudder. What Engibil could wring out of Habbazu might well touch off a war between Gibil and Zuabu, and would surely bring ruin to the house of Ereshguna. The second possibility concerned Sharur far more than the first. He was a Gibli: his own came before his city, his city before his god.
He heard a thump, and then the sound of running feet— not headed in his direction. Cries came from the top of the temple walclass="underline" “There he goes! After him, you fools!” Some of the guards at the entranceway ran off in pursuit of those fleeing footsteps. One man fell down, his armor clattering about him. Another tripped over him in the darkness, producing fresh clatters and horrible curses. The rest of the temple guards pounded on.
“A good evening to you, master merchant’s son.” The whisper came from right at Sharur’s elbow. He whirled, and there beside him stood Habbazu.
“How did you come here?” Sharur demanded, barely remembering in his surprise to whisper also. “I heard you run off in that direction.” He pointed.
Habbazu’s laugh was all but silent. “You heard footsteps. Likewise, the priests and the guards heard footsteps. The footsteps you heard were not mine. Likewise, the footsteps the priests and the guards heard were not mine. Have you seen a mountebank, a ventriloquist, who can throw his voice so it seems to come from somewhere far from his mouth? The footsteps you heard—likewise, the footsteps the priests and the guards heard—seemed to come from somewhere far from my feet.”
“How do you do that?” Sharur asked.
“Master merchant’s son, this is not the time to linger and ponder such things,” Habbazu replied. “Neither is this the place to linger and ponder such things.”
“He is right. The thief is right,” Sharur’s grandfather’s ghost said.
Sharur knew Habbazu was right without having his grandfather’s ghost tell him. As quietly as he could, he withdrew from the place of shadow and stole back toward the Street of Smiths. Beside him, Habbazu was quieter still. Sharur was a quiet man; the Zuabi thief, again, might have been a ghost.
The ruffian who had thought of challenging Sharur and Habbazu as they went toward the temple did not come out when they retreated from it. Perhaps he had gone; perhaps he recognized them and concluded they were still a bad bargain. Either way, Sharur was as glad not to encounter him.
Once back safe in his father’s house, Sharur allowed himself the luxury of a long sigh of relief. Instead of waking the slaves—waking them and making them aware he had come in during the middle of the night—he fetched beer and cups with his own hands.
Only after he and Habbazu had drunk did he ask, “What went wrong in the temple of Engibil, master thief?”
Habbazu looked disgusted. “Exactly the sort of thing I feared; exactly the sort of thing a thief can do nothing to prevent. There I was, moving toward the storeroom wherein the Alashkurri cup is secreted. There I was, eluding all the guards, eluding all the snares.” He paused, then added, “Were the god paying close attention to his house, it would have been harder. It was not easy, even as things were.” He sighed.