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the calculations necessary to build canals through which water might flow to the arid land, men who could bring order to the granaries, control the distribution of the wheat, make loans, men who could preserve the tribe's knowledge of plants and animals, of mathematics, who were able to read the stars. Men whose purpose was greater than simply feeding their broods.
    Shamas' father was a great scribe, a master, and the boy, like many other members of his family, had been favored with intelligence. His must not be wasted, for intelligence was a gift that God gave some men so that they might make life easier for others and so that they might combat those who had become infected with evil.
    "You should go, before they begin to look for you and your mother begins to worry."
    "My mother saw me follow you. She knows nothing will happen if I am with you."
    "But she will be cross with you nonetheless, because she knows you are not taking advantage of your education."
    "But, Uncle, dub-sar Hi makes us invoke Nidaba, the goddess of grains; he insists that it is she who has given us the power to know the signs."
    "You are learning what the dub-sar teaches you, then." "Yes, I know, but do you think it is Nidaba who gives us the power of knowledge?"
    Abram did not reply. He did not want to confuse the boy, although
    he could not keep silent about how he felt, about the path that had led him to the certainty that the gods his people worshipped were not filled with any spirit but were simply vessels of clay
    His father, Terah, modeled the clay himself and provided temples and palaces with those god idols. Gods made by his own hands! Abram still recalled the pain and grief he had caused when years ago Terah found him in his workshop, surrounded by the shards of dried clay that had once been the figures left to dry before being fired and transformed into gods.
    Abram had thrown them to the ground and stamped upon them with his feet, these false idols born of his father's hands before which men stupidly bowed their heads in the conviction that all gifts and all misfortunes descended from them. Abram did not know why he had acted as he had in his father's workshop; he simply could not but follow his instincts.
    Then he had sat down to await the consequences of his act. There was nothing in those figures; if they were gods they would have unleashed their fury upon him—they would have struck him dead. But nothing had happened, and the only wrath that descended upon him was that of his father when he saw the fruit of his labors shattered in a thousand pieces.
    Terah had reproached him for sacrilege, but Abram had responded disdainfully. He knew that there was nothing in those figures but clay, and he urged his father to reflect upon it.
    Then he asked his father's forgiveness for destroying his work, and he cleaned up the remains of the figures. He even kneaded the clay so that his father might make more gods to sell.
    Now, many years later, although all the members of their tribe recognized the authority of Terah, the respect given his son was just as great, and the men of the tribe often came to Abram in search of counsel and advice, many to hear his quiet but assured meditations on the one true God. Terah was not offended by this, for he was an old man now and he slept most of the day. At his death, Abram would become the tribe's leader.
    And that was precisely why Shamas admired him. That and the fact that Abram was in fact a distant relative of Shamas' mother, a person who spoke to the boy as an equal, as one who could reason as a man, curious to know all, unsatisfied with rote learning. And it was that quality that Abram had to remind him of now.
    "What I think, Shamas, is that you must learn what Hi teaches you, for that will enable you to uncover the difference between truth and untruth. The day will come when you alone will separate the wheat from the chaff. But until then, you must not look down upon any knowledge, no matter its