Fasillar took a gentler line: “Mortal, you can not deny that this cup was stolen from the temple in which it was placed. You can not deny it was raped away from the god’s house in which it dwelt. This was not right. This was not just. The cup should be restored to us, its rightful owners.”
In his dream, Sharur bowed. “Goddess, you cannot deny that we Giblut and the city of Gibil have suffered harm for what one of us did unwittingly. This was not right. This was not just. We are entitled to compensation or we are entitled to vengeance. When a surgeon cuts a man with an abscessed eye and causes him to lose the eye, the surgeon pays compensation or has his hand cut off. The victim and his family choose the penalty. That is right. That is just.”
“We have offered compensation,” Fasillar said. “We can offer more. Come to the mountains of Alashkurru, and we shall fill the packs of your donkeys with copper ore. We shall fill them with copper. We shall fill them with silver. We shall fill them with gold. The mountains of Alashkurru are rich in metals. We shall share the riches with the men of Gibil.”
Tarsiyas turned his angry face toward Fasillar. “No!” the war god shouted at the goddess of birth. “The Giblut are liars. The Giblut are thieves. The Giblut will make our own people like unto them if they keep coming into the mountains of Alashkurru. What good will it do us to have our cup back when in two generations our own people will be made like unto the Giblut? They will learn to ignore us. They will learn to pay us no heed.”
“If we have not the cup back, if the cup be shattered, they will pay us no heed in less time than two generations,” Fasillar answered. “How can we do anything but deal with the Giblut, and with this Gibli in particular? What choice have we?”
“But the Gibli will not deal with us!” Tarsiyas howled.
“Not if you keep trying to put him in fear,” Fasillar said.
“That has nothing to do with it,” Tarsiyas said, which was in large measure true. “The Giblut have grown too used to taking gods lightly. They think themselves equal to gods. They think themselves superior to gods. Worse: they think themselves in no need of noticing gods. Have they tried to steal, have they tried to destroy, Engibil’s store of power? No! They have not even bothered. They—”
“Be still,” Fasillar snarled, growing angry in turn. “Be still, or we shall see a generation of nothing but women born in the mountains. Who will fight your precious wars then, when women have too much sense for them?”
Tarsiyas shut up with a snap. Sharur had no idea whether Fasillar could do such a thing. He did not know whether Tarsiyas had any such idea, either. The Alashkurri war god was not inclined to take the chance, though, which struck Sharur as uncommonly sensible of him.
Fasillar turned her attention back to Sharur. “What will you do, man of Gibil?” she asked. “Will you take the road that leads to riches and delight, or will you run wild into chaos and madness and danger?”
Tarsiyas also started to say something to Sharur. Fasillar sent a sharp glance toward her fellow deity. Tarsiyas said not a word. Had he been Tarsiyas, Sharur also would have said not a word. Fasillar looked in his direction once more, awaiting his reply.
He did not want to come straight out and defy a god. He did not dare to come straight out and defy a god. Neither was he altogether certain he ought to defy the gods of the Alashkurrut. “I will do that which seems best to me,” he said slowly.
All at once, he was awake on the roof, under the stars. He wondered whether that meant the gods of the Alashkurrut had believed him or despaired of him. He wondered, too, which they should have done.
12
There on the counter, beside the scale that weighed out gold and silver, copper and tin, stood the snake-decorated clay cup from the Alashkurru Mountains. Sharur had gone downstairs to check on it and take it from the pot of tin after he woke from his dream, fearful lest Habbazu should have stolen it either for reasons of his own or because of urgings from the gods too strong for him to withstand.
But the Zuabi thief had not disturbed the cup in the night. Now, in the clear light of morning, he stared at it along with Sharur and Ereshguna and Tupsharru. Sharur’s eyes went for a moment from the cup to the scales close by. The cup was more precious than anything he or his father or his brother set on the balance pans of the scale, but its value was not measured in keshlut.
“Now we come down to it,” Ereshguna said in a heavy voice.
“I am afraid. I am not ashamed to admit I am afraid,” Habbazu said. Beside him, Tupsharru sipped on a cup of beer and nodded.
“I am also afraid,” Sharur said. “But I have grown tired of being afraid.” Afraid of the gods, was what he meant, but he was also afraid to say that aloud. His father and brother and the Zuabi thief understood him: of that he was sure. He went on, “I would like to set men free. To how many is that chance given?”
Ereshguna said, “Strange to think that, if we set men free by doing this, they are men far from Gibil, men far from the land between the rivers.”
“Yes, it is strange,” Sharur agreed. Something Tarsiyas had said during the dream the night before still rolled back and forth in his mind. Did Engibil have an object wherein he stored his power, as the gods of the Alashkurrut had stored theirs in this cup? Did other gods have such objects? Did, for instance, Enimhursag have such an object hidden in his city?
“Are we truly resolved to do this thing?” Ereshguna asked.
Habbazu was silent. Tupsharru was silent. Sharur said, “Father, I think we are. Freeing men anywhere will in the end help free men everywhere.” Habbazu did not contradict him. Tupsharru did not contradict him. And, in the end, Ereshguna, whose contradiction he would have taken most seriously of all, did not contradict him, either.
“Who will do it?” Habbazu asked. His voice was surprisingly small and surprisingly shaky. He had come further out from under the shadow of his city god, probably, than any other Zuabi. He was further put from under the shadow of his city god, probably, than many Giblut were out from under the shadow of Engibil. But he was not so far out from under the shadow of his city god as were Sharur, Ereshguna, and Tupsharru.
“I will do it,” Sharur said, and his voice was surprisingly small and surprisingly shaky, too. He did his best to strengthen it: “Most of the troubles we have known of late have sprung from my travels. Let us hope that, once the deed is done, the troubles will also be done.”
“We are men. We shall always have troubles,” Ereshguna said. Habbazu nodded. After a moment, so did Sharur and Tupsharru. Ereshguna went on, “Let us hope that, once the deed is done, these troubles will also be done.”
“Aye,” Sharur said. “Let us indeed hope that.”
He looked around. His eye fell on a bronze vase decorated with reliefs of lions and crocodiles, and with a proud line of writing around the rim: dimgalabzu made me. Though they could not have read the inscription, the men of the mountains of Alashkurru would have cherished such a vase—had their gods let them trade with the Giblut. Now they would cherish the vase for a different reason, one they would never know. Sharur picked up the vase by the neck and hefted it in his hands. It was of a good size. It was of a good weight.