Small Gods tds-13

by Terry David John Pratchett

  Didactylos reached down beside him and picked up a rusty iron lantern.

  Brutha looked up at the big white building.

  "That's the Library?" he said.

  "Yes," said Didactylos. "That's why it's got LIBRVM carved over the door in such big letters. But a scribe like you'd know that, of course."

  The Library of Ephebe was-before it burned down-the second biggest on the Disc.

  Not as big as the library in Unseen University, of course, but that library had one or two advantages on account of its magical nature. No other library anywhere, for example, has a whole gallery of unwritten books-books that would have been written if the author hadn't been eaten by an alligator around chapter 1, and so on. Atlases of imaginary places. Dictionaries of illusory words. Spotters' guides to invisible things. Wild thesauri in the Lost Reading Room. A library so big that it distorts reality and has opened gateways to all other libraries, everywhere and everywhen . . .

  And so unlike the Library at Ephebe, with its four or five hundred volumes. Many of them were scrolls, to save their readers the fatigue of having to call a slave every time they wanted a page turned. Each one lay in its own pigeonhole, though. Books shouldn't be kept too close together, otherwise they interact in strange and unforeseeable ways.

  Sunbeams lanced through the shadows, as palpable as pillars in the dusty air.

  Although it was the least of the wonders in the Library, Brutha couldn't help noticing a strange construction in the aisles. Wooden laths had been fixed between the rows of stone shelves about two meters from the floor, so that they supported a wider plank of no apparent use whatsoever. Its underside had been decorated with rough wooden shapes.

  "The Library," announced Didactylos.

  He reached up. His fingers gently brushed the plank over his head.

  It dawned on Brutha.

  "You're blind aren't you?" he said.

  "That's right."

  "But you carry a lantern?"

  "It's all right," said Didactylos. "I don't put any oil in it."

  "A lantern that doesn't shine for a man that doesn't see?"

  "Yeah. Works perfectly. And of course it's very philosophical."

  "And you live in a barrel."

  "Very fashionable, living in a barrel," said Didactylos, walking forward briskly, his fingers only occasionally touching the raised patterns on the plank. "Most of the philosophers do it. It shows contempt and disdain for worldly things. Mind you, Legibus has got a sauna in his. It's amazing the kind of things you can think of in it, he says."

  Brutha looked around. Scrolls protruded from their racks like cuckoos piping the hour.

  "It's all so . . . I never met a philosopher before I came here," he said. "Last night, they were all . . ."

  "You got to remember there's three basic approaches to philosophy in these parts," said Didactylos. "Tell him, Urn."

  "There's the Xenoists," said Urn promptly. "They say the world is basically complex and random. And there's the Ibidians. They say the world is basically simple and follows certain fundamental rules."

  "And there's me," said Didactylos, pulling a scroll out of its rack.

  "Master says basically it's a funny old world," said Urn.

  "And doesn't contain enough to drink," said Didactylos.

  "And doesn't contain enough to drink."

  "Gods," said Didactylos, half to himself. He pulled out another scroll. "You want to know about gods? Here's Xeno's Reflections, and old Aristocrates' Platitudes, and Ibid's bloody stupid Discourses, and Legibus's Geometries and Hierarch's Theologies . . . "

  Didactylos's fingers danced across the racks. More dust filled the air.

  "These are all books?" said Brutha.

  "Oh, yes. Everyone writes 'em here. You just can't stop the buggers."

  "And people can read them?" said Brutha.

  Omnia was based on one book. And here were . . . hundreds . . .

  "Well, they can if they want," said Urn. "But no one comes in here much. These aren't books for reading. They're more for writing."

  "Wisdom of the ages, this," said Didactylos. "Got to write a book, see, to prove you're a philosopher. Then you get your scroll and free official philosopher's loofah."

  The sunlight pooled on a big stone table in the center of the room. Urn unrolled the length of a scroll. Brilliant flowers glowed in the golden light.

  "Orinjcrates' On the Nature of Plants," said Didactylos. "Six hundred plants and their uses . . ."

  "They're beautiful," whispered Brutha.

  "Yes, that is one of the uses of plants," said Didactylos. "And one which old Orinjcrates neglected to notice, too. Well done. Show him Philo's Bestiary, Urn."

  Another scroll unrolled. There were dozens of Pictures of animals, thousands of unreadable words.

  "But . . . pictures of animals . . . it's wrong . . . isn't it wrong to . . ."

  "Pictures of just about everything in there," said Didactylos.

  Art was not permitted in Omnia.

  "And this is the book Didactylos wrote," said Urn.

  Brutha looked down at a picture of a turtle. There were . . . elephants, they're elephants, his memory supplied, from the fresh memories of the bestiary sinking indelibly into his mind . . . elephants on its back, and on them something with mountains and a waterfall of an ocean around its edge . . .

  "How can this be?" said Brutha. "A world on the back of a tortoise? Why does everyone tell me this? This can't be true!"

  "Tell that to the mariners," said Didactylos. "Everyone who's ever sailed the Rim Ocean knows it. Why deny the obvious?"

  "But surely the world is a perfect sphere, spinning about the sphere of the sun, just as the Septateuch tells us," said Brutha. "That seems so . . . logical. That's how things ought to be."

  "Ought?" said Didactylos. "Well, I don't know about ought. That's not a philosophical word."

  "And . . . what is this . . ." Brutha murmured, pointing to a circle under the drawing of the turtle.

  "That's a plan view," said Urn.

  "Map of the world," said Didactylos.

  "Map? What's a map?"

  "It's a sort of picture that shows you where you are," said Didactylos.

  Brutha stared in wonderment. "And how does it know?"

  "Hah!"

  "Gods," prompted Om again. "We're here to ask about gods!"

  "But is all this true?" said Brutha.

  Didactylos shrugged. "Could be. Could be. We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork."

  "You mean you don't know it's true?" said Brutha.

  "I think it might be," said Didactylos. "I could be wrong. Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about."

  "Talk about gods," said Om.

  "Gods," said Brutha weakly.

  His mind was on fire. These people made all these books about things, and they weren't sure. But he'd been sure, and Brother Nhumrod had been sure, and Deacon Vorbis had a sureness you could bend horseshoes around. Sureness was a rock.

  Now he knew why, when Vorbis spoke about Ephebe, his face was gray with hatred and his voice was tense as a wire. If there was no truth, what was there left? And these bumbling old men spent their time kicking away the pillars of the world, and they'd nothing to replace them with but uncertainty. And they were proud of this?

  Urn was standing on a small ladder, fishing among the shelves of scrolls. Didactylos sat opposite Brutha, his blind gaze still apparently fixed on him.

  "You don't like it, do you?" said the philosopher.

  Brutha had said nothing.

  "You know," said Didactylos conversationally, "people'll tell you that us blind people are the real business where the other senses are concerned. It's not true, of course. The buggers just say it because it makes them feel better. It gets rid of the obligation to feel sorry for us. But when you can't see you do learn to listen more. The way people breathe, the sounds their clothes make . . ."

  Urn reap
peared with another scroll.

  "You shouldn't do this," said Brutha wretchedly. "All this . . ." His voice trailed off.

  "I know about sureness," said Didactylos. Now the light, irascible tone had drained out of his voice. "I remember, before I was blind, I went to Omnia once. This was before the borders were closed, when you still let people travel. And in your Citadel I saw a crowd stoning a man to death in a pit. Ever seen that?"

  "It has to be done," Brutha mumbled. "So the soul can be shriven and-'

  "Don't know about the soul. Never been that kind of a philosopher," said Didactylos. "All I know is, it was a horrible sight."

  "The state of the body is not-”

  "Oh, I'm not talking about the poor bugger in the pit," said the philosopher. "I'm talking about the people throwing the stones. They were sure all right. They were sure it wasn't them in the pit. You could see it in their faces. So glad it wasn't them that they were throwing just as hard as they could."

  Urn hovered, looking uncertain.

  "I've got Abraxas's On Religion," he said.

  "Old 'Charcoal' Abraxas," said Didactylos, suddenly cheerful again. "Struck by lightning fifteen times so far, and still not giving up. You can borrow this one overnight if you want. No scribbling comments in the margins, mind you, unless they're interesting."

  "This is it!" said Om. "Come on, let's leave this idiot."

  Brutha unrolled the scroll. There weren't even any pictures. Crabbed writing fiIled it, line after line.

  "He spent years researching it," said Didactylos. "Went out into the desert, talked to the small gods. Talked to some of our gods, too. Brave man. He says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at."

  Brutha unrolled a bit more of the scroll. Five minutes ago he would have admitted that he couldn't read. Now the best efforts of the inquisitors couldn't have forced it out of him. He held it up in what he hoped was a familiar fashion.

  "Where is he now?" he said.

  "Well, someone said they saw a pair of sandals with smoke coming out just outside his house a year or two back," said Didactylos. "He might have, you know, pushed his luck."

  "I think," said Brutha, "that I'd better be going. I'm sorry to have intruded on your time."

  "Bring it back when you've finished with it," said Didactylos.

  "Is that how people read in Omnia?" said Urn.

  "What?"

  "Upside down."

  Brutha picked up the tortoise, glared at Urn, and strode as haughtily as possible out of the Library.

  "Hmm," said Didactylos. He drummed his fingers on the tables.

  "It was him I saw in the tavern last night," said Urn. "I'm sure, master."

  "But the Omnians are staying here in the palace."

  "That's right, master."

  "But the tavern is outside."

  "Yes."

  "Then he must have flown over the wall, do you think?"

  "I'm sure it was him, master."

  "Then . . . maybe he came later. Maybe he hadn't gone in when you saw him."

  "It can only be that, master. The keepers of the labyrinth are unbribable."

  Didactylos clipped Urn across the back of the head with his lantern.

  "Stupid boy! I've told you about that sort of statement."

  "I mean, they are not easily bribable, master. Not for all the gold in Omnia, for example."

  "That's more like it."

  "Do you think that tortoise was a god, master?"

  "He's going to be in big trouble in Omnia if he is. They've got a bastard of a god there. Did you ever read old Abraxas?"

  "No, master."

  "Very big on gods. Big gods man. Always smelled of burnt hair. Naturally resistant."

  Om crawled slowly along the length of a line.

  "Stop walking up and down like that," he said, "I can't concentrate."

  "How can people talk like that?" Brutha asked the empty air. "Acting as if they're glad they don't know things! Finding out more and more things they don't know! It's like children proudly coming to show you a full potty!"

  Om marked his place with a claw.

  "But they find things out," he said. "This Abraxas was a thinker and no mistake. I didn't know some of this stuff. Sit down!"

  Brutha obeyed.

  "Right," said Om. "Now . . . listen. Do you know how gods get power?"

  "By people believing in them," said Brutha. "Millions of people believe in you."

  Om hesitated.

  All right, all right. We are here and it is now. Sooner or later he'll find out for himself . . .

  "They don't believe," said Om.

  "But-”

  "It's happened before," said the tortoise. "Dozens of times. D'you know Abraxas found the lost city of Ee? Very strange carvings, he says. Belief, he says. Belief shifts. People start out believing in the god and end up believing in the structure."

  "I don't understand," said Brutha.

  "Let me put it another way," said the tortoise. "I am your God, right?"

  "Yes."

  "And you'll obey me."

  "Yes."

  "Good. Now take a rock and go and kill Vorbis."

  Brutha didn't move.

  "I'm sure you heard me," said Om.

  "But he'll . . . he's . . . the Quisition would-”

  "Now you know what I mean," said the tortoise. "You're more afraid of him than you are of me, now. Abraxas says here: `Around the Godde there forms a Shelle of prayers and Ceremonies and Buildings and Priestes and Authority, until at Last the Godde Dies. Ande this maye notte be noticed.' "

  "That can't be true!"

  "I think it is. Abraxas says there's a kind of shellfish that lives in the same way. It makes a bigger and bigger shell until it can't move around any more, and so it dies."

  "But . . . but . . . that means . . . the whole Church . . ."

  "Yes."

  Brutha tried to keep hold of the idea, but the sheer enormity of it kept wrenching it from his mental grasp.

  "But you're not dead," he managed.

  "Next best thing," said Om. "And you know what? No other small god is trying to usurp me. Did I ever tell you about old Ur-Gilash? No? He was the god back in what's now Omnia before me. Not much of one. Basically a weather god. Or a snake god. Some­thing, anyway. It took years to get rid of him, though. Wars and everything. So I've been thinking . . ."

  Brutha said nothing.

  "Om still exists," said the tortoise. "I mean the shell. All you'd have to do is get people to under­stand."

  Brutha still said nothing.

  "You can be the next prophet," said Om.

  "I can't! Everyone knows Vorbis will be the next prophet!"

  "Ah, but you'll be official. "

  "No."

  "No? I am your God!"

  "And I am my me. I'm not a prophet. I can't even write. I can't read. No one will listen to me."

  Om looked him up and down.

  "I must admit you're not the chosen one I would have chosen," he said.

  "The great prophets had vision," said Brutha. "Even if they . . . even if you didn't talk to them, they had something to say. What could I say? I haven't got anything to say to anyone. What could I say?"

  "Believe in the Great God Om," said the tortoise.

  "And then what?"

  "What do you mean, and then what?"

  Brutha looked out glumly at the darkening court­yard.

  "Believe in the Great God Om or be stricken with thunderbolts," he said.

  "Sounds good to me."

  "Is that how it always has to be?"

  The last rays of the sun glinted off the statue in the center of the courtyard. It was vaguely feminine. There was a penguin perched on one shoulder.

  "Patina, Goddess of Wisdom," said Brutha. "The one with a penguin. Why a penguin?"

  "Can't imagine," said Om hurriedly.

  "Nothing wise about penguins, is there?"

  "Shouldn't think so. Unless you count the fact tha
t you don't get them in Omnia. Pretty wise of them."

  "Brutha!"

  "That's Vorbis," said Brutha, standing up. "Shall I leave you here?"

  "Yes. There's still some melon. I mean loaf."

  Brutha wandered out into the dusk.

  Vorbis was sitting on a bench under a tree, as still as a statue in the shadows.

  Certainty, Brutha thought. I used to be certain. Now I'm not so sure.

  "Ah, Brutha. You will accompany me on a little stroll. We will take the evening air."

  "Yes, lord."

  "You have enjoyed your visit to Ephebe."

  Vorbis seldom asked a question if a statement would do.

  "It has been . . . interesting."

  Vorbis put one hand on Brutha's shoulder and used the other to haul himself up on his staff.

  "And what do you think of it?" he asked.

  "They have many gods, and they don't pay them much attention," said Brutha. "And they search for ignorance."

  "And they find it in abundance, be sure of that," said Vorbis.

  He pointed his staff into the night. "Let us walk," he said.

  There was the sound of laughter, somewhere in the darkness, and the clatter of pans. The scent of evening-opening flowers hung thickly in the air. The stored heat of daytime radiating from the stones, made the night seem like a fragrant soup.

  "Ephebe looks to the sea," said Vorbis after a while. "You see the way it is built? All on the slope of a hill facing the sea. But the sea is mutable. Nothing lasting comes from the sea. Whereas our dear Citadel looks towards the high desert. And what do we see there?"

  Instinctively Brutha turned, and looked over the rooftops to the black bulk of the desert against the sky.

  "I saw a flash of light," he said. "And again. On the slope."

  "Ah. The light of truth," said Vorbis. "So let us go forth to meet it. Take me to the entrance to the labyrinth, Brutha. You know the way."

  "My lord?" said Brutha.

  "Yes, Brutha?"

  "I would like to ask you a question."

  "Do so."

  "What happened to Brother Murduck?"

  There was the merest suggestion of hesitation in the rhythm of Vorbis's stick on the cobbles. Then the exquisitor said, "Truth, good Brutha, is like the light. Do you know about light?"

  "It . . . comes from the sun. And the moon and stars. And candles. And lamps."