“You must run away, my son,” she told him. “The Earthlord will be back soon, and when he returns he will be angry and destroy you.”
“No,” Habbili said. “I have come to steal my father’s head, so that I can bring him back to life.”
Suya was frightened, but she could not change his mind. “Dark Xergal keeps your father’s head in the deepest cellar of his house,” she said at last, “in a crystal casket that cannot be broken without the hammer of Argal the Thunderer, his brother. But you cannot steal the hammer without the net of Efiyal, Lord of the Waters, who is brother to both. All three brothers are together on a hunting trip and their treasures are unguarded, so you must go now to steal them, for soon they will return to their houses and then you will never succeed.”
So Habbili the Crooked fled from Xergal’s house and followed his mother’s instructions, diving into the great river and swimming down into its depths to the house of Efiyal. There by his skill he overcame the crocodiles that guarded the river god’s throne and stole the net. Next he climbed high to the top of Xandos, the great mountain, to Argal’s house on its peak. He threw Efiyal’s net over the one hundred deadly warriors there so that they slept at his command, then took the great hammer down from the place where it hung by the door. Then Habbili reclaimed the magic net and climbed down Mount Xandos. He went down into the ground, back to the house where Xergal his uncle, lord of the deep places, kept his throne and all his treasure.
“Please be careful, son,” his mother Suya told him. “If Xergal finds you here he will destroy you. He is the god of the dead lands. He will drag you into the shadows and you will stay there forever.” But Habbili went down the stairs into the deepest part of the Deathlord’s castle and found his father’s head in a box of gold and crystal, floating in a pool of quicksilver. When Habbili picked it up his father’s eyes opened. But since he had eyes and a mouth but no heart, he did not recognize his own son, and so Nushash’s head began to cry, “Help! Xergal, great lord! Someone is trying to steal me!”
At that moment Xergal was returning from his hunting trip. He heard the cry of Nushash’s head and hurried down the tunnel toward the deep vault, his footsteps booming like thunder. Habbili was frightened despite the coal burning hot in his breast—he knew that with his crippled legs he could not outrun the Deathlord—so he set the head of his father down on the floor, took up the Hammer of Argal and the Net of Efiyal, and waited. When Xergal burst into the room, his beard and robes black as a starless, moonless night, his eyes flashing red like rubies, Habbili threw the net over him. For a moment Xergal was slowed by his own brother’s sea magic and stopped, amazed. In that moment, Habbili threw the hammer at him and it knocked Xergal the Earthlord to the ground. Habbili picked up the hammer, took the head of his father in its crystal casket, and ran up the stairs with Xergal right behind him, getting closer all the time.
Suya, Habbili’s mother, grabbed at the cloak of Xergal as he ran past. “Husband,” she cried, “you must come and eat your supper before it is cold.”
The Earthlord tried to pull away from her, but she held on. “Woman, let go of me. Someone has stolen what is mine.”
Suya clung to him. “But I have turned back the bed. Come and lie with me before the bed is cold.”
Still Xergal fought to get away. “Let go of me! Someone has stolen what is mine!”
Suya would not let go. “Come and stay with me. I feel ill, and soon I may die.”
Xergal shouted, “You will die now!” and struck her down, but by that time Habbili the Crooked had escaped from of the underground palace and had fled south into the forests around Xandos. There he used the Hammer of Argal to free his father’s head from the casket, and then all the pieces of Nushash Whitefire were joined and the Lord of the Sun was alive again.
“Father!” he said. “You live once more!”
“You are a good and faithful son,” Nushash told him. “You have saved me. Where is your mother? I wish to see her.”
When Habbili told him that Suya the Dawnflower had died so that they could escape from Xergal the Earthlord, great Nushash was full of grief. He went away then to his house in the highest heavens and resumed his old chore of driving the sun chariot across the sky each day. Habbili remained on the earth, where he taught the sons of men the truth about Argal the Thunderer and the rest of that traitorous clan of gods, revealing them all as the enemies of Nushash Whitefire. So the people drove out Argal’s supporters and the lands all around Xandos ever after worshipped Nushash, the true king of the sky.”
Pigeon squeezed her hand. She looked down and saw the question in his eyes. “Yes,” she said, “that is the truth. That is why I told you the story. Habbili the Crooked was dead, with his heart cut out, and yet he returned to defeat his enemies—and they were gods and demons! Yes, he was frightened, but he did not surrender to fear. That is why things turned out right in the end.”
Pigeon squeezed her hand.
“You’re welcome. So do not fear, little one. We will find a way. The gods will help us. Heaven will preserve us.”
She held him for a long time until she noticed that the sound of his breathing had changed. Pigeon had finally fallen asleep.
Against all odds, the crippled boy Habbili survived, she thought to herself. Against all odds. But to save him, his mother had to die.
“Are you a believer, King Olin?” The autarch’s golden eyes seemed even brighter than usual.
“A believer?”
“Yes. Do you believe in heaven?”
“I believe in my gods.”
“Ah. So you are not a believer—at least in the old sense.”
“What does that mean, Xandian? I told you I believe in…”
“… ‘In my gods,’ is what you said. I heard.” Sulepis turned up his long hands like the two sides of a scale. “Which means you acknowledge that other people have other beliefs… other gods. But those who truly believe in their own creed think that other gods cannot exist—that the beliefs of others are superstition or devil-worship.” The autarch smiled. For a handsome man, he had a terrible, frightening smile; even after more than a year of serving him Pinimmon Vash had still not grown used to it. “I gather you are not that type.”
Olin shrugged, but his words were careful. “I try to understand the world in which I live.”
“Which is to say you find it hard to believe in anything so foolish as the idea that every word of the Book of the Trigon is the truth. Ah, no, do not grow angry, Olin! The same is easily said of my people’s Revelations of Nushash. Fireside tales for children.”