Small Gods Read online

Page 19

 

  . . . he wondered what good it was supposed to do.

  The blindfold was removed in an open courtyard, made of some white stone that turned the sunlight into a glare. Brutha blinked.

  Bowmen lined the yard. Their arrows were pointing downwards, but their manner suggested that pointing horizontally could happen any minute.

  Another bald man was waiting for them. Ephebe seemed to have an unlimited supply of skinny bald men wearing sheets. This one smiled, with his mouth alone.

  No one likes us much, Brutha thought.

  “I trust you will excuse this minor inconvenience,” said the skinny man. “My name is Aristocrates. I am secretary to the Tyrant. Please ask your men to put down their weapons. ”

  Vorbis drew himself up to his full height. He was a head taller than the Ephebian. Pale though his complexion normally was, it had gone paler.

  “We are entitled to retain our arms!” he said. “We are an emissary to a foreign land!”

  “But not a barbarian one,” said Aristocrates mildly. “Weapons will not be required here. ”

  “Barbarian?” said Vorbis. “You burned our ships!”

  Aristocrates held up a hand.

  “This is a discussion for later,” he said. “My pleasant task now is to show you to your quarters. I am sure you would like to rest a little after your journey. You are, of course, at liberty to wander anywhere you wish in the palace. And if there is anywhere where we do not wish you to wander, the guards will be sure to inform you with speed and tact. ”

  “And we can leave the palace?” said Vorbis coldly.

  Aristocrates shrugged.

  “We do not guard the gateway except in times of war,” he said. “If you can remember the way, you are free to use it. But vague perambulations in the labyrinth are unwise, I must warn you. Our ancestors were sadly very suspicious and put in many traps out of distrust; we keep them well-?greased and primed, of course, merely out of a respect for tradition. And now, if you would care to follow me . . . ”

  The Omnians kept together as they followed Aristocrates through the palace. There were fountains. There were gardens. Here and there groups of people sat around doing nothing very much except talking. The Ephebians seemed to have only a shaky grasp of the concepts of “inside” and “outside”-except for the palaces encircling labyrinth, which was very clear on the subject.

  “Danger attends us at every turn,” said Vorbis quietly. “Any man who breaks rank or fraternizes in any way will explain his conduct to the inquisitors. At length. ”

  Brutha looked at a woman filling a jug from a well. It did not look like a very military act.

  He was feeling that strange double feeling again. On the surface there were the thoughts of Brutha, which were exactly the thoughts that the Citadel would have approved of. This was a nest of infidels and unbelievers, its very mundanity a subtle cloak for the traps of wrong thinking and heresy. It might be bright with sunlight, but in reality it was a place of shadows.

  But down below were the thoughts of the Brutha that watched Brutha from the inside . . .

  Vorbis looked wrong here. Sharp and unpleasant. And any city where potters didnt worry at all when naked, dripping wet old men came and drew triangles on their walls was a place Brutha wanted to find out more about. He felt like a big empty jug. The thing to do with something empty was fill it up.

  “Are you doing something to me?” he whispered.

  In his box, Om looked at the shape of Bruthas mind. Then he tried to think quickly.

  “No,” he said, and that at least was the truth. Had this ever happened before?

  Had it been like this back in the first days? It must have been. It was all so hazy now. He couldnt remember the thoughts hed had then, just the shape of the thoughts. Everything had been highly colored, everything had been growing every day-he had been growing every day; thoughts and the mind that was thinking them were developing at the same speed. Easy to forget things from those times. It was like a fire trying to remember the shape of its flames. But the feeling-he could remember that.

  He wasnt doing anything to Brutha. Brutha was doing it to himself. Brutha was beginning to think in godly ways. Brutha was starting to become a prophet.

  Om wished he had someone to talk to. Someone who understood.

  This was Ephebe, wasnt it? Where people made a living trying to understand?

  The Omnians were to be housed in little rooms around a central courtyard. There was a fountain in the middle, in a very small grove of sweet-smelling pine trees. The soldiers nudged one another. People think that professional soldiers think a lot about fighting, but serious professional soldiers think a lot more about food and a warm place to sleep, because these are two things that are generally hard to get, whereas fighting tends to turn up all the time.

  There was a bowl of fruit in Bruthas cell, and a plate of cold meat. But first things first. He fished the God out of the box.

  “Theres fruit,” he said. “Whatre these berries?” “Grapes,” said Om. “Raw material for wine. ”

  “You mentioned that word before. What does it mean?”

  There was a cry from outside.

  “Brutha! ”

  “Thats Vorbis. Ill have to go. ”

  Vorbis was standing in the middle of his cell.

  “Have you eaten anything?” he demanded.

  “No, lord. ”

  “Fruit and meat, Brutha. And this is a fast day. They seek to insult us!”

  “Um. Perhaps they dont know that it is a fast day?” Brutha hazarded.

  “Ignorance is itself a sin,” said Vorbis.

  “Ossory VII, verse 4,” said Brutha automatically.

  Vorbis smiled and patted Bruthas shoulder.

  “You are a walking book, Brutha. The Septateuch perambulatus. ”

  Brutha looked down at his sandals.

  Hes right, he thought. And I had forgotten. Or at least, not wanted to remember.

  And then he heard his own thoughts echoed back to him: its fruit and meat and bread, thats all. Thats all it is. Fast days and feast days and Prophets Days and bread days . . . who cares? A God whose only concern about food now is that its low enough to reach?

  I wish he wouldnt keep patting my shoulder.

  Vorbis turned away.

  “Shall I remind the others?” Brutha said.

  “No. Our ordained brothers will not, of course, require reminding. As for soldiers . . . a little licence, perhaps, is allowable this far from home . . . ”

  Brutha wandered back to his cell.

  Om was still on the table, staring fixedly at the melon.

  “I nearly committed a terrible sin,” said Brutha. “I nearly ate fruit on a fruitless day. ”

  “Thats a terrible thing, a terrible thing,” said Om. “Now cut the melon. ”

  “But it is forbidden!” said Brutha.

  “No its not,” said Om. “Cut the melon. ”

  “But it was the eating of fruit that caused passion to invade the world,” said Brutha.

  “All it caused was flatulence,” said Om. “Cut the melon!”

  “Youre tempting me!”

  “No Im not. Im giving you permission. Special dispensation! Cut the damn melon!”

  "Only a bishop or higher is allowed to giv- Brutha began. And then he stopped.

  Om glared at him.

  “Yes. Exactly,” he said. “And now cut the melon. ” His tone softened a bit. “If it makes you feel any better, I shall declare that it is bread. I happen to be the God in this immediate vicinity. I can call it what I damn well like. Its bread. Right? Now cut the damn melon. ”

  “Loaf,” corrected Brutha.

  "Right. And give me a slice without any seeds in it.

  Brutha did so, a bit carefully.

  “And eat up quick,” said Om.

  “In case Vorbis finds us?”

  “Because youve got to go and find a philosopher,” said O
m. The fact that his mouth was full didnt make any difference to his voice in Bruthas mind. “You know, melons grow wild in the wilderness. Not big ones like this. Little green jobs. Skin like leather. Cant bite through em. The years Ive spent eating dead leaves a goatd spit out, right next to a crop of melons. Melons should have thinner skins. Remember that. ”

  “Find a philosopher?”

  “Right. Someone who knows how to think. Someone who can help me stop being a tortoise. ”

  “But . . . Vorbis might want me. ”

  “Youre just going for a stroll. No problem. And hurry up. Theres other gods in Ephebe. I dont want to meet them right now. Not looking like this. ”

  Brutha looked panicky.

  “How do I find a philosopher?” he said.

  “Around here? Throw a brick, I should think. ”

  The labyrinth of Ephebe is ancient and full of one hundred and one amazing things you can do with hidden springs, razor-sharp knives, and falling rocks. There isnt just one guide through it. There are six, and each one knows his way through one-sixth of the labyrinth. Every year they have a special competition, when they do a little redesigning. They vie with one another to see who can make his section even more deadly than the others to the casual wanderer. Theres a panel of judges, and a small prize.

  The furthest anyone ever got through the labyrinth without a guide was nineteen paces. Well, more or less. His head rolled a further seven paces, but that probably doesnt count.

  At each changeover point there is a small chamber without any traps at all. What it does contain is a small bronze bell. These are the little waiting-rooms where visitors are handed on to the next guide. And here and there, set high in the tunnel roof over the more ingenious traps, are observation windows, because guards like a good laugh as much as anyone else.

  All of this was totally lost on Brutha, who padded amiably along the tunnels and corridors without really thinking much about it, and at last pushed open the gate into the late evening air.

  It was fragrant with the scent of flowers. Moths whirred through the gloom.

  “What do philosophers look like?” said Brutha, “When theyre not having a bath, I mean. ”

  “They do a lot of thinking,” said Om. “Look for someone with a strained expression. ”

  “That might just mean constipation. ”

  “Well, so long as theyre philosophical about it . . . ”

  The city of Ephebe surrounded them. Dogs barked. Somewhere a cat yowled. There was that general susurration of small comfortable sounds that shows that, out there, a lot of people are living their lives.

  And then a door burst open down the street and there was the cracking noise of a quite large wine amphora being broken over someones head.

  A skinny old man in a toga picked himself up from the cobbles where he had landed, and glared at the doorway.

  “Im telling you, listen, a finite intellect, right, cannot by means of comparison reach the absolute truth of things, because being by nature indivisible, truth excludes the concepts of ”more“ or ”less“ so that nothing but truth itself can be the exact measure of truth. You bastards,” he said.

  Someone from inside the building said, “Oh yeah? Sez you. ”

  The old man ignored Brutha but, with great difficulty, pulled a cobblestone loose and hefted it in his hand.

  Then he dived back through the doorway. There was a distant scream of rage.