Small Gods (32 page)

Vorbis walked directly to a large alcove that glowed red with the light of forge fires. Several workers were clustered around something wide and curved.

“There,” said Vorbis. “What do you think?”

It was a turtle.

The iron-founders had done a pretty good job, even down to the patterning on the shell and the scales on the legs. It was about eight feet long.

Brutha heard a rushing noise in his ears as Vorbis spoke.

“They speak poisonous gibberish about turtles, do they not? They think they live on the back of a Great Turtle. Well, let them die on one.”

Now Brutha could see the shackles attached to each iron leg. A man, or a woman, could with great discomfort lie spread-eagled on the back of the turtle and be chained firmly at the wrists and ankles.

He bent down. Yes, there was the firebox underneath. Some aspects of Quisition thinking never changed.

That much iron would take ages to heat up to the point of pain. Much time, therefore, to reflect on things…

“What do you think?” said Vorbis.

A vision of the future flashed across Brutha’s mind.

“Ingenious,” he said.

“And it will be a salutary lesson for all others tempted to stray from the path of true knowledge,” said Vorbis.

“When do you intend to, uh, demonstrate it?”

“I am sure an occasion will present itself,” said Vorbis.

When Brutha straightened up, Vorbis was staring at
him so intently that it was as if he was reading Brutha’s thoughts off the back of his head.

“And now, please leave,” said Vorbis. “Rest as much as you can…my son.”

Brutha walked slowly across the Place, deep in unaccustomed thought.

“Afternoon, Your Reverence.”

“You know already?”

Cut-Me-Own-Hand-Off Dhblah beamed over the top of his lukewarm ice-cold sherbet stand.

“Heard it on the grapevine,” he said. “Here, have a slab of Klatchian Delight. Free. Onna stick.”

The Place was more crowded than usual. Even Dhblah’s hot cakes were selling like hot cakes.

“Busy today,” said Brutha, hardly thinking about it.

“Time of the Prophet, see,” said Dhblah, “when the Great God is manifest in the world. And if you think it’s busy now, you won’t be able to swing a goat here in a few days’ time.”

“What happens then?”

“You all right? You look a bit peaky.”

“What happens then?”

“The Laws.
You
know. The Book of Vorbis? I suppose—” Dhblah leaned toward Brutha—you wouldn’t have a hint, would you? I suppose the Great God didn’t happen to say anything of benefit to the convenience food industry?”

“I don’t know. I think he’d like people to grow more lettuce.”

“Really?”

“It’s only a guess.”

Dhblah grinned evilly. “Ah, yes, but it’s
your
guess. A nod’s as good as a poke with a sharp stick to a deaf
camel, as they say. I know where I can get my hands on a few acres of well-irrigated land, funnily enough. Perhaps I ought to buy now, ahead of the crowd?”

“Can’t see any harm in it, Mr. Dhblah.”

Dhblah sidled closer. This was not hard. Dhblah sidled everywhere.
Crabs
thought he walked sideways.

“Funny thing,” he said. “I mean…Vorbis?”

“Funny?” said Brutha.

“Makes you think. Even Ossory must have been a man who walked around, just like you and me. Got wax in his ears, just like ordinary people. Funny thing.”

“What is?”

“The whole thing.”

Dhblah gave Brutha another conspiratorial grin and then sold a footsore pilgrim a bowl of hummus that he would come to regret.

Brutha wandered down to his dormitory. It was empty at this time of day, hanging around dormitories being discouraged in case the presence of the rock-hard mattresses engendered thoughts of sin. His few possessions were gone from the shelf by his bunk. Probably he had a room of his own somewhere, although no one had told him.

Brutha felt totally lost.

He lay down on the bunk, just in case, and offered up a prayer to Om. There was no reply. There had been no reply for almost all of his life, and that hadn’t been too bad, because he’d never expected one. And before, there’d always been the comfort that perhaps Om was listening and simply not deigning to say anything.

Now, there was nothing to hear.

He might as well be talking to himself, and listening to himself.

Like Vorbis.

That thought wouldn’t go away. Mind like a steel ball, Om had said. Nothing got in or out. So all Vorbis could hear were the distant echoes of his own soul. And out of the distant echoes he would forge a Book of Vorbis, and Brutha suspected he knew what the commandments would be. There would be talk of holy wars and blood and crusades and blood and piety and blood.

Brutha got up, feeling like a fool. But the thoughts wouldn’t go away.

He was a bishop, but he didn’t know what bishops did. He’d only seen them in the distance, drifting along like earthbound clouds. There was only one thing he felt he knew how to do.

Some spotty boy was hoeing the vegetable garden. He looked at Brutha in amazement when he took the hoe, and was stupid enough to try to hang on to it for a moment.

“I am a
bishop
, you know,” said Brutha. “Anyway, you aren’t doing it right. Go and do something else.”

Brutha jabbed viciously at the weeds around the seedlings. Only away a few weeks and already there was a haze of green on the soil.

You’re a bishop. For being good. And here’s the iron turtle. In case you’re bad. Because…

…there were two people in the desert, and Om spoke to one of them.

It had never occurred to Brutha like that before.

Om had spoken to him. Admittedly, he hadn’t said the things that the Great Prophets said he said. Perhaps he’d never said things like that…

He worked his way along to the end of the row. Then he tidied up the bean vines.

Lu-Tze watched Brutha carefully from his little shed by the soil heaps.

It was another barn. Urn was seeing a lot of barns.

They’d started with a cart, and invested a lot of time in reducing its weight as much as possible. Gearing had been a problem. He’d been doing a lot of thinking about gears. The ball wanted to spin much faster than the wheels wanted to turn. That was probably a metaphor for something or other.

“And I can’t get it to go backward,” he said.

“Don’t worry,” said Simony. “It won’t have to go backward. What about armor?”

Urn waved a distracted hand around his workshop.

“This is a village forge!” he said. “This thing is twenty feet long! Zacharos can’t make plates bigger than a few feet across. I’ve tried nailing them on a framework, but it just collapses under the weight.”

Simony looked at the skeleton of the steam car and the pile of plates stacked beside it.

“Ever been in a battle, Urn?” he said.

“No. I’ve got flat feet. And I’m not very strong.”

“Do you know what a tortoise is?”

Urn scratched his head. “Okay. The answer isn’t a little reptile in a shell, is it? Because you
know
I know that.”

“I mean a shield tortoise. When you’re attacking a fortress or a wall, and the enemy is dropping everything he’s got on you, every man holds his shield overhead so that it…kind of…slots into all the shields around it. Can take a lot of weight.”

“Overlapping,” murmured Urn.

“Like scales,” said Simony.

Urn looked reflectively at the cart.

“A tortoise,” he said.

“And the battering-ram?” said Simony.

“Oh, that’s no problem,” said Urn, not paying much attention. “Tree-trunk bolted to the frame. Big iron rammer. They’re only bronze doors, you say?”

“Yes. But very big.”

“Then they’re probably hollow. Or cast bronze plates on wood. That’s what I’d do.”

“Not solid bronze? Everyone says they’re solid bronze.”

“That’s what I’d say, too.”

“Excuse me, sirs.”

A burly man stepped forward. He wore the uniform of the palace guards.

“This is Sergeant Fergmen,” said Simony. “Yes, sergeant?”

“The doors is reinforced with Klatchian steel. Because of all the fighting in the time of the False Prophet Zog. And they opens outwards only. Like lock gates on a canal, you understand? If you push on ’em, they only locks more firmly together.”

“How are they opened, then?” said Urn.

“The Cenobiarch raises his hand and the breath of God blows them open,” said the sergeant.

“In a
logical
sense, I meant.”

“Oh. Well, one of the deacons goes behind a curtain and pulls a lever. But…when I was on guard down in the crypts, sometimes, there was a room…there was gratings and things…well, you could hear water gushing…”

“Hydraulics,” said Urn. “Thought it would be hydraulics.”

“Can you get in?” said Simony.

“To the room? Why not? No one bothers with it.”

“Could he make the doors open?” said Simony.

“Hmm?” said Urn.

Urn was rubbing his chin reflectively with a hammer. He seemed to be lost in a world of his own.

“I said, could Fergmen make these hydra haulics work?”

“Hmm? Oh. Shouldn’t think so,” said Urn, vaguely.

“Could you?”

“What?”

“Could you make them work?”

“Oh. Probably. It’s just pipes and pressures, after all. Um.”

Urn was still staring thoughtfully at the steam cart. Simony nodded meaningfully at the sergeant, indicating that he should go away, and then tried the mental inter-planetary journey necessary to get to whatever world Urn was in.

He tried looking at the cart, too.

“How soon can you have it all finished?”

“Hmm?”

“I said—”

“Late tomorrow night. If we work through tonight.”

“But we’ll need it for the next dawn! We won’t have time to see if it works!”

“It’ll work first time,” said Urn.

“Really?”

“I built it. I know about it. You know about swords and spears and things. I know about things that go round and round. It will work first time.”

“Good. Well, there are other things I’ve got to do—”

“Right.”

Urn was left alone in the barn. He looked reflectively at his hammer, and then at the iron cart.

They didn’t know how to cast bronze properly here. Their iron was pathetic, just pathetic. Their copper? It was terrible. They seemed to be able to make steel that
shattered at a blow. Over the years the Quisition had weeded out all the good smiths.

He’d done the best he could, but…

“Just don’t ask me about the second or third time,” he said quietly to himself.

Vorbis sat in the stone chair in his garden, papers strewn around him.

“Well?”

The kneeling figure did not look up. Two guards stood over it, with drawn swords.

“The Turtle people…the people are plotting something,” it said, the voice shrill with terror.

“Of course they are. Of course they are,” said Vorbis. “And what is this plot?”

“There is some kind of…when you are confirmed as Cenobiarch…some kind of device, some machine that goes by itself…it will smash down the doors of the Temple…”

The voice faded away.

“And where is this device now?” said Vorbis.

“I don’t know. They’ve bought iron from me. That’s all I know.”

“An iron device.”

“Yes.” The man took a deep breath—half-breath, half-gulp. “People say…the guards said…you have my father in prison and you might…I plead…”

Vorbis looked down at the man.

“But you
fear
,” he said, “that I might have you thrown into the cells as well. You think I am that sort of person. You fear that I may think, this man has associated with heretics and blasphemers in familiar circumstances…”

The man continued to stare fixedly at the ground.
Vorbis’s fingers curled gently around his chin and raised his head until they were eye to eye.

“What you have done is a
good
thing,” he said. He looked at one of the guards. “Is this man’s father still alive?”

“Yes, lord.”

“Still capable of walking?”

The inquisitor shrugged. “Ye-es, lord.”

“Then release him this instant, put him in the charge of his dutiful son here, and send them both back home.”

The armies of hope and fear fought in the informant’s eyes.

“Thank you, lord,” he said.

“Go in peace.”

Vorbis watched one of the guards escort the man from the garden. Then he waved a hand vaguely at one of the head inquisitors.

“Do we know where he lives?”

“Yes, lord.”

“Good.”

The inquisitor hesitated.

“And this…device, lord?”

“Om has spoken to me. A machine that goes by itself? Such a thing is against all reason. Where are its muscles? Where is its mind?”

“Yes, lord.”

The inquisitor, whose name was Deacon Cusp, had got where he was today, which was a place he wasn’t sure right now that he wanted to be, because he liked hurting people. It was a simple desire, and one that was satisfied in abundance within the Quisition. And he was one of those who were terrified in a very particular way by Vorbis. Hurting people because you enjoyed it…
that was understandable. Vorbis just hurt people because he’d decided that they should be hurt, without passion, even with a kind of hard love.

In Cusp’s experience, people didn’t make things up, ultimately, not in front of an exquisitor. Of course there were no such things as devices that moved by themselves, but he made a mental note to increase the guard—

“However,” said Vorbis, “there will be a disturbance during the ceremony tomorrow.”

“Lord?”

“I have…special knowledge,” said Vorbis.

“Of course, lord.”

“You know the breaking strain of sinews and muscles, Deacon Cusp.”

Cusp had formed an opinion that Vorbis was somewhere on the other side of madness. Ordinary madness he could deal with. In his experience there were quite a lot of mad people in the world, and many of them became even more insane in the tunnels of the Quisition. But Vorbis had passed right through that red barrier and had built some kind of logical structure on the other side. Rational thoughts made out of insane components…