“It is good,” he said. “I have had three women ask me for this paste in the last two days, and I have been embarrassed to go without.” Contented, he took the powder, which he had stored in his own little jar, and departed.
Another man pushed past him into the house of Ereshguna, a stalwart fellow of about the age of Sharur’s father. Sharur did not recognize him till he took off his straw hat and fanned himself with it. “Ah,” Sharur said, bowing as he might have to any new customer. “You have not honored us with your presence for some little while, Izmaili.”
“And yet you remember the name I give myself. No wonder you are a master merchant’s son, soon, no doubt, to be a master merchant yourself.” Izmaili—-as Kimash the lugal preferred to call himself when he went out into Gibil without the trappings that made him as nearly divine as a man could be—smiled and nodded.
“You are kind and gracious,” Sharur said. “How may I serve you? Would you like some cosmetic powder, as the druggist before you did?”
“I thank you for the thought, but no; I have come to the house of Ereshguna for a rather different reason.” Kimash’s voice was dry.
“I am your servant, as I am the servant of any man who comes to the house of Ereshguna to buy or to sell,” Sharur replied.
“I fear I have come neither to buy nor to sell,” Kimash said. “While another sits where I often do”—an allusion to the impostor who occupied the lugal’s high seat while he in turn impersonated an ordinary man—“I have come to pass the time of day, to gossip.”
“Shall I bring you beer, then, Izmaili?” Sharur asked. “Shall I bring you salt fish? Shall I bring you onions? Would you care to drink while you pass the time of day? Would you care to eat while you gossip?”
“I would be grateful for beer and for salt fish and for onions,” Kimash said, though in the palace he was no doubt used to the daintier viands the man who took his place on the seat might now enjoy. Sharur fetched the beer and food with his own hands, not wanting to summon a slave who was liable to recognize the lugal and do some gossiping of his own, gossiping that could get back to Engibil’s ears.
Kimash drank beer and ate salt fish and onions with every sign of enjoyment, as if he were a shopkeeper or an artisan or a peasant rather than likely the single most powerful man in the land between the rivers. Sharur ate and drank with him, and presently, when the beer in his cup had nearly reached the bottom, he spoke to Izmaili who was Kimash as if he were a shopkeeper or an artisan or a peasant who had come into the house of Ereshguna: “So. What have you heard? What do you want to know?”
Kimash smiled again. He bit into an onion and breathed odorous fumes into Sharur’s face. “What have I heard? I have heard that something once missing is now gone for good. What do I want to know? I want to know whether what I have heard is true.”
“Ah,” Sharur said, and then said nothing more for some little while. At last, doing his best to remain casual, he went on, “And where might you have heard such a thing as that?”
“I heard it from someone who labors in the house from which the thing disappeared,” Kimash answered elliptically. Burshagga told him, having learned from the god, Sharur thought: Burshagga or some other man of the new among the priesthood. If breaking the Alashkurri cup had alarmed Sharur’s grandfather’s ghost, what must it have done to Engibil? What must it have done to gods throughout the land of Kudurru? The ghost had said no one, ghost or demon or god, would be able to tell whence the cry of anguish from the Alashkurri gods had come, for which Sharur was heartily glad.
He answered, “The man who labors in that house did tell you the truth, as a matter of fact.” How would Kimash respond to that? The lugal had sought Habbazu in the same way as had Engibil; he had sought the master thief as if he were a servant of the god.
But Kimash slowly clapped his hands together—once, twice, three times. “It is good,” he said. “It is very good. The gods who suffered this are not our gods. The gods who suffered this dwell far away. But with men in one place freer, men everywhere breathe more easily. My greatgrandfather was an ensi, through whom Engibil spoke. Great-grandfather was a priest, to whom Engibil gave orders as Enimhursag gives the Imhursagut orders today.”
He did not directly name himself, or what he was, or how he did what he did. Sharur spoke with similar care: “Today the lugal speaks in his own voice, but must ever be wary, lest the god seek to seize once more the power he has let slip between his fingers. But how will things be in the days of the lugal’s great-grandson? And how will things be in the days of his great-grandson?”
“Even so,” Kimash said softly. His eyes glowed. “Even so. How will things be in the days of his great-grandson? Who then will be wary of whom?”
“That is surely an... interesting question,” Sharur said. He imagined Engibil reduced to the status of a demon of the desert, or perhaps to that of a small god like Kessis or Mitas, able to change a man’s luck for good or ill but not much more—certainly unable to aspire to the rule of a city. He imagined lugals ruling in other cities in the land between the rivers. He imagined even stubborn gods feeling men . from their own cities chopping at their heels as Sharur had chopped at Enimhursag’s heel during the second battle against the Imhursagut.
Kimash said, “The road will not be easy. The road will not run straight. The gods will see in which direction it runs. They will try to turn us back along it. They are strong. They are dangerous. They may yet win. If Engibil truly did choose to rise up in wrath now, who knows whether we Giblut could hope to withstand his anger and his might?”
“So the lugal feared earlier this year,” Sharur said, continuing to speak of Kimash as if he were someone else. “But, from what I have heard, the god had not the will to rise up in wrath, even if he had the strength.”
“What you have heard and what I have heard are one and the same,” Kimash said. “Distracting the god has always been the lugal’s greatest need. I do hope, though, that distracting the god shall not always be the lugal’s greatest need.”
“Might... ah, Izmaili, I think it may not be so,” Sharur replied, and told the lugal wdiat Tarsiyas had indiscreetly revealed about the thing in which Engibil had secreted away so much of his power.
“Well, well,” Kimash said. “How interesting.” For a moment, Sharur was disappointed at getting no stronger response. Then Kimash leaned toward him and demanded, “Do you know what sort of thing this is? Do you know where it may be found?”
“I know neither of these things,” Sharur answered. “I do not think I was meant to know such a thing even existed. The Alashkurri god spoke of it in a temper to a goddess. But I heard. In my dream, I heard. And what I heard in my dream. I remember.”
“Well, well,” the lugal said again. “This is no small matter you have set before me. I am glad I am only an ordinary man, and do not have to concern myself with such.” His smile declared how far apart lay the words that came from his mouth and the thoughts that formed behind his eyes.
Sharur had thoughts of his own, too. He turned one loose: “I wonder how a man who is not an ordinary man, a man who does have to concern himself with such, would go about finding this thing, whatever it may be?”
“Right now, I do not know. Right now, I can not guess,” Kimash said. “But such a man will surely concern himself with such a thing before any great stretch of time has passed.”