Ereshguna said, “Nothing is yet decided, ghost of my father. Nothing will be decided today, I do not think. We shall take time for thought, and then do as we reckon best.”
“It is the Zuabi who led you into this,” the ghost said shrilly. “It is the Zuabi who sneaked into Engibil’s temple. This thing you think of breaking must be the thing he thought of stealing. He is a foreigner, too, and has no business in Gibil.” The ghost roared like a lion, as if seeking to frighten Habbazu away. But Habbazu could not hear him, and stayed where he was.
“All will be well, ghost of my grandfather,” Sharur said. “Truly, all will be well.”
Habbazu still looked as troubled as the ghost sounded. “I am afraid,” he said. “All choices look bad to me now. To take the cup back to the mountains, to smash it—both fill me with dread. Even taking it to Enzuabu, as I had first thought to do, sets me to trembling like a leaf in the wind.”
“We can act in our own interest and be free, or we can be tools of the gods,” Sharur said. “Do you see a third choice, master thief?” .
“If you leave only those choices, doing either the one thing or the other, no,” Habbazu answered. “But could it not be that what is best for the gods will also prove best for mortal men?”
“A good question,” Ereshguna said.
“A very good question,” Sharur’s grandfather’s ghost agreed, so loudly that Sharur was almost surprised Habbazu could not hear him. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe not allZuabut are cheats and fools all the time.”
Maybe you approve of this Zuabi’s words because he says things like the things you say, Sharur thought. But he did not argue with the ghost of his grandfather. He saw no point to arguing with the ghost of his grandfather. Arguing with a mortal man rarely changed his mind. Arguing with a ghost was a waste of breath.
After some thought, Sharur spoke to Habbazu: “What you say could be, master thief. We ourselves would draw great benefit from doing as the gods desire. But would our sons and grandsons, would their sons and grandsons, thank us for it?”
“I do not know,” Habbazu replied. “I can not know. Neither do you know. Neither can you know. But I see you are trying to think like a god, to think of what will be long after you are gone.” The master thief sighed. “I honor you for the effort. Let us think on this once more until morning, and then, if we have not found some compelling reason to change our course ... let us break the cup.”
“Father?” Sharur asked.
Ereshguna also sighed. “Habbazu has spoken well. Let us think on this once more until morning, and then ...” He did not say the words, as Habbazu had said them, but he nodded. His eyes went to the jar of tin nodules wherein the Alashkurri cup rested. So did Habbazu’s. And so did Sharur’s.
Sharur knew he lay sleeping on the mat on the roof of the house of Ereshguna. He did not seem to be there, though. He seemed to have returned to the company of the gods of the Alashkurru Mountains. He was not afraid. For one thing, he half expected—more than half expected—the Alashkurri gods would bring this dream to him otjce more. For another, he knew it was only a dream. Nothing bad—nothing too bad—could happen to him in a dream.
“Why do you hate us so?” Fasillar demanded. She folded her arms over her bulging belly, as if to say without words, How can you hate someone who aids in bringing new life into the world?
The question was one that had a great many possible answers, as far as Sharur was concerned. He chose the softest one he could find. Yes, this was only a dream. Yes, the Alashkurri gods had scant power here. But they were gods, and power was what made them gods. “I do not hate you, gods of the Alashkurrut,” he said.
“Then why do you seek to tamper with that which is not yours?” rumbled Tarsiyas, all shining in his armor of copper.
“Why do you not return that which is not yours to those to whom it rightly belongs?” Fasillar added.
“Why did you gods make life so hard for Giblut in the mountains of Alashkurru?” Sharur returned. “Why have all the gods made life so hard for Giblut outside of Gibil?”
“Because you took that which was not yours to take,” Tarsiyas said angrily. “Because some fool of a mortal gave you that which was not his to give. Because—” He started to go on, but checked himself.
Fasillar said, perhaps, that which he had begun to say but which he had held back: “Because, in taking that which was not yours to take, you have put us, the great gods of the Alashkujrut, in fear. It is not right that mortals should put the great gods in fear.”
“No, indeed. It is not right,” Tarsiyas echoed. He shook his fist in the direction from which Sharur was perceiving him. “What is right is that the great gods should put mortals in fear. That is the natural order of things. That is how things should be. That is how things must be.” He shook his fist again.
If he thought his bombast and ferocious bluster were putting Sharur in fear, he was right. If he thought bombast and bluster would make Sharur more inclined to send the cup back to the mountains of Alashkurru, he was wrong.
Fasillar must have sensed as much, for the Alashkurri goddess of birth put on her face a look of such pleading, such piteousness, that even Sharur, knowing full well the expression was assumed, could hardly resist melting under it. “Will you not do as you should?” she said. “Will you not do as we ask? Would you deprive the Alashkurrut of the overlords they need? Would you deprive them of the gods they cherish?”
Sharur thought of Huzziyas the wanax, who so wanted to trade with the Giblut that he was willing to do so by subterfuge. Only when Tarsiyas directly forbade him to engage in such trade had he desisted. Did he need the gods as overlords? Did he cherish them? Sharur had his doubts.
“Do you think we cannot take vengeance if you seek to harm us?” Tarsiyas said now. “Do you think we shall have no power left with which to punish anyone who tries to do us wrong?”
That was exactly what Sharur thought. That was exactly what Kessis and Mitas, the small gods of the Alashkurrut, had told him. Had they not told him, he would have thought so anyhow. The way the great gods of the Alashkurrut were behaving said more plainly than any overt words how much they feared being brought low were the cup to break.
“You have spoken much,” Sharur said. “Will you answer now a question of mine?”
“You may ask it,” Fasillar said. “Whether we answer and how we answer will depend on what it is.”
“I understand,” Sharur said. That was, as far as he could see, the first sensible response the gods of the Alashkurrut had given him. “Here is my question, then: why did you set so much of your power in this one cup?”
“To keep it hidden,” Fasillar replied at once. “To keep it secure. To keep it stored away where no one, god or man, would think to look for it.” The goddess’s mouth twisted. “This worked less well than we hoped it would.”
“To keep any cowardly wretch from stealing it,” Tarsiyas added. “This also worked less well than we hoped it would.”
“From all that I have heard, from all that I have seen, from all that I have learned, this cup was not stolen from the mountains of Alashkurru,” Sharur said. “This cup was fairly given in trade by an Alashkurri to a Gibli, and so it came to Gibil.”
“This cup was given by an idiot,” Tarsiyas roared. “This cup was given by a fool. This cup was given by a dolt whose mother was a sow and whose father was a lump of dung. Speak to me not of the man by whom this cup was given.” The god’s face turned the color of his burnished copper armor. Sharur wondered if a god could suffer a fit of apoplexy. Had Tarsiyas been a man, Sharur would have judged him ripe for one.