Nothing for miles, except what he had brought with him. This must have been how the prophets felt, when they went into the desert to find . . . whatever it was they found, and talk to . . . whoever they talked to.
He heard Om, slightly peevish, say: “People’ve got to believe in something. Might as well be gods. What else is there?”
Brutha laughed.
“You know,” he said, “I don’t think I believe in anything any more.”
“Except me!”
“Oh, I know you exist,” said Brutha. He felt Om relax a little. “There’s something about tortoises. Tortoises I can believe in. They seem to have a lot of existence in one place. It’s gods in general I’m having difficulty with.”
“Look, if people stop believing in gods, they’ll believe in anything,” said Om. “They’ll believe in young Urn’s steam ball. Anything at all.”
“Hmm.”
A green glow in the sky indicated that the light of dawn was chasing frantically after its sun.
Vorbis groaned.
“I don’t know why he won’t wake up,” said Brutha. “I can’t find any broken bones.”
“How do you know?”
“One of the Ephebian scrolls was all about bones. Can’t you do anything for him?”
“Why?”
“You’re a god.”
“Well, yes. If I was strong enough, I could probably strike him with lightning.”
“I thought to did the lightning.”
“No, just the thunder. You’re allowed to do as much lightning as you like but you have to contract for the thundering.”
Now the horizon was a broad golden band.
“How about rain?” said Brutha. “How about something useful?”
A line of silver appeared at the bottom of the gold. Sunlight was racing towards Brutha.
“That was a very hurtful remark,” said the tortoise. “A remark calculated to wound.”
In the rapidly growing light Brutha saw one of the rock islands a little way off. Its sand-blasted pillars offered nothing but shade, but shade, always available in large quantities in the depths of the Citadel, was now in short supply here.
“Caves?” said Brutha.
“Snakes.”
“But still caves?”
“In conjunction with snakes.”
“Poisonous snakes?”
“Guess.”
The Unnamed Boat clipped along gently, the wind filling Urn’s robe attached to a mast made out of bits of the sphere’s framework bound together with Simony’s sandal thongs.
“I think I know what went wrong,” said Urn. “A mere overspeed problem.”
“Overspeed? We left the water!” said Simony.
“It needs some sort of governor device,” said Urn, scratching a design on the side of the boat. “Something that’d open the valve if there was too much steam. I think I could do something with a pair of revolving balls.”
“It’s funny you should say that,” said Didactylos. “When I felt us leave the water and the sphere exploded I distinctly felt my-”
“That bloody thing nearly killed us!” said Simony.
“So the next one will be better,” said Urn, cheerfully. He scanned the distant coastline.
“Why don’t we land somewhere along here?” he said.
“The desert coast?” said Simony. “What for? Nothing to eat, nothing to drink, easy to lose your way. Omnia’s the only destination in this wind. We can land this side of the city. I know people. And those people know people. All across Omnia, there’s people who know people. People who believe in the Turtle.”
“You know, I never meant for people to believe in the Turtle,” said Didactylos unhappily. “It’s just a big turtle. It just exists. Things just happen that way. I don’t think the Turtle gives a damn. I just thought it might be a good idea to write things down and explain things a bit.”
“People sat up all night, on guard, while other people made copies,” said Simony, ignoring him. “Passing them from hand to hand! Everyone making a copy and passing it on! Like a fire spreading underground!”
“Would this be lots of copies?” said Didactylos cautiously.
“Hundreds! Thousands!”
“I suppose it’s too late to ask for, say, a five per cent royalty?” said Didactylos, looking hopeful for a moment. “No. Probably out of the question, I expect. No. Forget I even asked.”
A few flying fish zipped out of the waves, pursued by a dolphin.
“Can’t help feeling a bit sorry for that young Brutha,” said Didactylos.
“Priests are expendable,” said Simony. “There’s too many of them.”
“He had all our books,” said Urn.
“He’ll probably float with all that knowledge in him,” said Didactylos.
“He was mad, anyway,” said Simony. “I saw him whispering to that tortoise.”
“I wish we still had it. There’s good eating on one of those things,” said Didactylos.
It wasn’t much of a cave, just a deep hollow carved by the endless desert winds and, a long time ago, even by water. But it was enough.
Brutha knelt on the stony floor and raised the rock over his head.
There was a buzzing in his ears and his eyeballs felt as though they were set in sand. No water since sunset and no food for a hundred years. He had to do it.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and brought the rock down.
The snake had been watching him intently but in its early-morning torpor it was too slow to dodge. The cracking noise was a sound that Brutha knew his conscience would replay to him, over and over again.
“Good,” said Om, beside him. “Now skin it, and don’t waste the juice. Save the skin, too.”
“I didn’t want to do it,” said Brutha.
“Look at it this way,” said Om, “if you’d walked in the cave without me to warn you, you’d be lying on the floor now with a foot the size of a wardrobe. Do unto others before they do unto you.”
“It’s not even a very big snake,” said Brutha.
“And then while you’re writhing there in indescribable agony, you imagine all the things you would have done to that damn snake if you’d got to it first,” said Om. “Well, your wish has been granted. Don’t give any to Vorbis,” he added.
“He’s running a bad fever. He keeps muttering.”
“Do you really think you’ll get him back to the Citadel and they’ll believe you?” said Om.
“Brother Nhumrod always said I was very truthful,” said Brutha. He smashed the rock on the cave wall to create a crude cutting edge, and gingerly started dismembering the snake. “Anyway, there isn’t anything else I can do. I couldn’t just leave him.”
“Yes you could,” said Om.
“To die in the desert?”
“Yes. It’s easy. Much easier than not leaving him to die in the desert.”
No.
“This is how they do things in Ethics, is it?” said Om sarcastically.
“I don’t know. It’s how I’m doing it.”
The Unnamed Boat bobbed in a gully between the rocks. There was a low cliff beyond the beach. Simony climbed back down it, to where the philosophers were huddling out of the wind.
“I know this area,” he said. “We’re a few miles from the village where a friend lives. All we have to do is wait till nightfall.”
“Why’re you doing all this?” said Urn. “I mean, what’s the point?”
“Have you ever heard of a country called Istanzia?” said Simony. “It wasn’t very big. It had nothing anyone wanted. It was just a place for people to live.”
“Omnia conquered it fifteen years ago,” said Didactylos.
“That’s right. My country,” said Simony. “I was just a kid then. But I won’t forget. Nor will others. There’s lots of people with a reason to hate the Church.”
“I saw you standing close to Vorbis,” said Urn. “I thought you were protecting him.”
“Oh, I was, I was,” said Simony. “I don’t want anyone to kill him before I do.”
Didactylos wrapped his toga around himself and shivered.
The sun was riveted to the copper dome of the sky. Brutha dozed in the cave. In his own corner, Vorbis tossed and turned.
Om sat waiting in the cave mouth.
Waited expectantly.
Waited in dread.
And they came.
They came out from under scraps of stone, and from cracks in the rock. They fountained up from the sand, they distilled out of the wavering sky. The air was fiIled with their voices, as faint as the whispering of gnats.
Om tensed.
The language he spoke was not like the language of the high gods. It was hardly language at all. It was a mere modulation of desires and hungers, without nouns and with only a few verbs .
. . . Want . . .
Om replied, mine.
There were thousands of them. He was stronger, yes, he had a believer, but they fiIled the sky like locusts. The longing poured down on him with the weight of hot lead. The only advantage, the only advantage, was that the small gods had no concept of working together. That was a luxury that came with evolution .
. . . Want . . .
Mine!
The chittering became a whine.
But you can have the other one, said Om .