Small Gods tds-13

by Terry David John Pratchett

  He could just walk away. The wilderness had seemed quite pleasant, apart from the thirst and hunger. St. Ungulant with his madness and his mushrooms seemed to have life exactly right. It didn't matter if you fooled yourself provided you didn't let yourself know it, and did it well. Life was so much simpler, in the desert.

  But there were a dozen guards by the gate. They had an unsympathetic look. He went back to his seat, which was tucked away in a corner, and stared gloomily at the ground.

  If Om was alive, surely he could send a sign?

  A grating by Brutha's sandals lifted itself up a few inches and slid aside. He stared at the hole.

  A hooded head appeared, stared back, and disappeared again. There was a subterranean whispering. The head reappeared, and was followed by a body. It pulled itself on to the cobbles. The hood was pushed back. The man grinned conspiratorially at Brutha, put his finger to his lips and then, without warning, launched himself at him with violent intent.

  Brutha rolled across the cobbles and raised his hands frantically as he saw the gleam of metal. One filthy hand clamped against his mouth. A knifeblade made a dramatic and very final silhouette against the light-

  "No! "

  "Why not? We said the first thing we'll do, we'll kill all the priests!"

  "Not that one!"

  Brutha dared to swivel his eyes sideways. Although the second figure rising from the hole was also wearing a filthy robe, there was no mistaking the paintbrush hairstyle.

  He tried to say "Urn?"

  "Shut up, you," said the other man, pressing the knife to his throat.

  "Brutha?" said Urn. "You're alive?"

  Brutha moved his eyes from his captor to Urn in a way which he hoped would indicate that it was too soon to make any commitment on this point.

  "He's all right," said Urn.

  "All right? He's a priest!"

  "But he's on our side. Aren't you, Brutha?"

  Brutha tried to nod, and thought: I'm on everyone's side. It'd be nice if, just for once, someone was on mine.

  The hand was unclamped from his mouth, but the knife remained resting on his throat. Brutha's normally careful thought processes ran like quicksilver.

  "The Turtle Moves?" he ventured.

  The knife was withdrawn, with obvious reluctance.

  "I don't trust him," said the man. "We should shove him down the hole at least."

  "Brutha's one of us," said Urn.

  "That's right. That's right," said Brutha. "Which ones are you?"

  Urn leaned closer.

  "How's your memory?"

  "Unfortunately, it is fine."

  "Good. Good. Uh. It would be a good idea to stay out of trouble, d'you hear . . . if anything happens. Remember the Turtle. Well, of course you would."

  "What things?"

  Urn patted him on the shoulder, making Brutha think for a moment of Vorbis. Vorbis, who never touched another person inside his head, was a great toucher with his hands.

  "Best if you don't know what's happening," said Urn.

  "But I don't know what's happening," said Brutha.

  "Good. That's the way."

  The burly man gestured with his knife towards the tunnels that led into the rock.

  "Are we going, or what?" he demanded.

  Urn ran after him and then stopped briefly and turned.

  "Be careful," he said. "We need what's in your head!"

  Brutha watched them go.

  "So do I," he murmured.

  And then he was alone again.

  But he thought: Hold on. I don't have to be. I'm a bishop. At least I can watch. Om's gone and soon the world will end, so at least I might as well watch it happen.

  Sandals flapping, Brutha set off towards the Place.

  Bishops move diagonally. That's why they often turn up where the kings don't expect them to be.

  "You godawful idiot! Don't go that way!"

  The sun was well up now. In fact it was probably setting, if Didactylos's theories about the speed of light were correct, but in matters of relativity the point of view of the observer is very important, and from Om's point of view the sun was a golden ball in a flaming orange sky.

  He pulled himself up another slope, and stared blearily at the distant Citadel. In his mind's eye, he could hear the mocking voices of all small gods.

  They didn't like a god who had failed. They didn't like that at all. It let them all down. It reminded them of mortality. He'd be thrust out into the deep desert, where no one would ever come. Ever. Until the end of the world.

  He shivered in his shell.

  Urn and Fergmen walked nonchalantly through the tunnels of the Citadel, using the kind of nonchalant walk which, had there been anyone to take an interest in it, would have drawn detailed and arrow-sharp attention to them within seconds. But the only people around were those with vital jobs to do. Besides, it was not a good idea to stare too hard at the guards, in case they stared back.

  Simony had told Urn he'd agreed to this. He couldn't quite remember doing so. The sergeant knew a way into the Citadel, that was sensible. And Urn knew about hydraulics. Fine. Now he was walking through these dry tunnels with his toolbelt clinking. There was a logical connection, but it had been made by someone else.

  Fergmen turned a corner and stopped by a large grille, which stretched from floor to ceiling. It was very rusty. It might once have been a door-there was a suggestion of hinges, rusted into the stone. Urn peered through the bars. Beyond, in the gloom, there were pipes.

  "Eureka," he said.

  "Going to have a bath, then?" said Fergmen.

  "Just keep watch."

  Urn selected a short crowbar from his belt and inserted it between the grille and the stonework. Give me a foot of good steel and a wall to brace . . . my . . . foot . . . against-the grille ground forward and then popped out with a leaden sound-and I can change the world . . .

  He stepped inside the long, dark, damp room, and gave a whistle of admiration.

  No one had done any maintenance for-well, for as long as it took iron hinges to become a mass of crumbling rust-but all this still worked?

  He looked up at lead and iron buckets bigger than he was, and a tangle of man-sized pipes.

  This was the breath of God.

  Probably the last man who knew how it worked had been tortured to death years before. Or as soon as it was installed. Killing the creator was a traditional method of patent-protection.

  There were the levers and there, hanging over pits in the rock floor, were the two sets of counterweights. Probably it'd only take a few hundred gallons of water to swing the balance either way. Of course, the water'd have to be pumped up-

  "Sergeant?"

  Fergmen peered round the door. He looked nervous, like an atheist in a thunderstorm.

  "What?"

  Urn pointed.

  "There's a big shaft through the wall there, see? At the bottom of the gear-chain?"

  "The what?"

  "The big knobbly wheels?"

  "Oh. Yeah."

  "Where does the shaft go to?"

  "Don't know. There's the big Treadmill of Correction through there."

  Ah.

  The breath of God was ultimately the sweat of men. Didactylos would have appreciated the joke, Urn thought.

  He was aware of a sound that had been there all the time but was only now penetrating through his concentration. It was tinny and faint and full of echoes, but it was voices. From the pipes.

  The sergeant, to judge by his expression, had heard them too.

  Urn put his ear to the metal. There was no possibility of making out words, but the general religious rhythm was familiar enough.

  "It's just the service going on in the Temple," he said. "It's probably resonating off the doors and the sound's being carried down the pipes."

  Fergmen did not look reassured.

  "No gods are involved in any way," Urn translated. He turned his attention to the pipes again.

  "Simple princi
ple," said Urn, more to himself than to Fergmen. "Water pours into the reservoirs on the weights, disturbing the equilibrium. One lot of weights descends and the other rises up the shaft in the wall. The weight of the door is immaterial. As the bottom weights descend, these buckets here tip over, pouring the water out. Probably quite a smooth ac­tion. Perfect equilibrium at either end of the move­ment, too. Nicely thought out."

  He caught Fergmen's expression.

  "Water goes in and out and the doors swing open," he translated. "So all we've got to do is wait for . . . what did he say the sign would be?"

  "They'll blow a trumpet when they're through the main gate," said Fergmen, pleased to be of service.

  "Right." Urn eyed the weights and the reservoirs overhead. The bronze pipes dripped with corrosion.

  "But perhaps we'd better just check that we know what we're doing," he said. "It probably takes a min­ute or two before the doors start moving." He fum­bled under his robe and produced something that looked, to Fergmen's eye, very much like a torture instrument. This must have communicated itself to Urn, who said very slowly and kindly: "This is an ad-just-ab-ble span-ner."

  "Yes?"

  "It's for twisting nuts off."

  Fergmen nodded miserably.

  "Yes?" he said.

  "And this is a bottle of penetrating oil."

  "Oh, good."

  "Just give me a leg up, will you? It'll take time to unhook the linkage to the valve, so we might as well make a start." Urn heaved himself into the ancient machinery while, above, the ceremony droned on.

  Cut-Me-Own-Hand-Off Dhblah was all for new prophets. He was even in favor of the end of the world, if he could get the concession to sell religious statues, cut-price icons, rancid sweetmeats, ferment­ing dates, and putrescent olives on a stick to any watching crowds.

  Subsequently, this was his testament. There never was a Book of the Prophet Brutha, but an enterprising scribe, during what came to be called the Renovation, did assemble some notes, and Dhblah had this to say:

  "I. I was standing right by the statue of Ossory, right, when I noticed Brutha just beside me. Everyone was keeping away from him because of him being a bishop and they do things to you if you jostle bishops.

  "II. I said to him, hello, Your Graciousness, and offered him a yoghurt practically free.

  "III. He responded, no.

  "IV. I said, it's very healthy, it's a live yoghurt.

  "V. He said, yes, he could see.

  "VI. He was staring at the doors. This was about the time of the third gong, right, so we all knew we'd got hours to wait. He was looking a bit down and it's not as if he even ate the yoghurt, which I admit was on the hum a bit, what with the heat. I mean, it was more alive than usual. I mean, I had to keep hitting it with a spoon to stop it getting out of the . . . all right. I was just explaining about the yoghurt. All right. I mean, you want to put a bit of color in, don't you? People like a bit of color. It was green.

  "VII. He just stood there, staring. So I said, got a problem, Your Reverence? Upon which he vouch­safed, I cannot hear him. I said, what is this he to whom what you refer? He said, if he was here, he would send me a sign.

  "VIII. There is no truth whatsoever in the rumor that I ran away at this juncture. It was just the pressure of the crowd. I have never been a friend of the Quisition. I might have sold them food, but I always charged them extra.

  "IX. Anyway, right, then he pushed through the line of guards what was holding the crowd back and stood right in front of the doors, and they weren't sure what to do about bishops, and I heard him say something like, I carried you in the desert, I believed all my life, just give me this one thing.

  "X. Something like that, anyway. How about some yoghurt? Bargain offer. Onna stick."

  Om lifted himself over a creeper-clad wall by grasping tendrils in his beak and hauling himself up by the neck muscles. Then he fell down the other side. The Citadel was as far away as ever.

  Brutha's mind was flaming like a beacon in Om's senses. There's a streak of madness in everyone who spends quality time with gods, and it was driving the boy now.

  "It's too soon!" Om yelled. "You need followers! It can't be just you! You can't do it by yourself! You have to get disciples first!"

  Simony turned to look down the length of the Turtle. Thirty men were crouched under the shell, looking very apprehensive.

  A corporal saluted.

  "The needle's there, sergeant."

  The brass whistle whistled.

  Simony picked up the steering ropes. This was what war should be, he thought. No uncertainty. A few more Turtles like this, and no one would ever fight again.

  "Stand by," he said.

  He pulled the big lever hard.

  The brittle metal snapped in his hand.

  Give anyone a lever long enough and they can change the world. It's unreliable levers that are the problem.

  In the depths of the Temple's hidden plumbing, Urn grasped a bronze pipe firmly with his spanner and gave the nut a cautious turn. It resisted. He changed position, and grunted as he used more pressure.

  With a sad little metal sound, the pipe twisted-and broke . . .

  Water gushed out, hitting him in the face. He dropped the tool and tried to block the flow with his fingers, but it spurted around his hands and gurgled down the channel towards one of the weights.

  "Stop it! Stop it!" he shouted.

  "What?" said Fergmen, several feet below him.

  "Stop the water!"

  "How?"

  "The pipe's broken!"

  "I thought that's what we wanted to do?"

  "Not yet!"

  "Stop shouting, mister! There's guards around!"

  Urn let the water gush for a moment as he struggled out of his robe, and then he rammed the sodden material into the pipe. It shot out again with some force and slapped wetly against the lead funnel, sliding down until it blocked the tube that led to the weights. The water piled up behind it and then spilled over on to the floor.

  Urn glanced at the weight. It hadn't begun to move.

  He relaxed slightly. Now, provided there was still enough water to make the weight drop . . .

  "Both of you-stand still."

  He looked around, his mind going numb.

  There was a heavy-set man in a black robe standing in the stricken doorway. Behind him, a guard held a sword in a meaningful manner.

  "Who are you? Why are you here?"

  Urn hesitated for only a moment.

  He gestured with his spanner.

  "Well, it's the seating, innit," he said. "You've got shocking seepage around the seating. Amazing it holds together."

  The man stepped into the room. He glared uncer­tainly at Urn for a moment and then turned his atten­tion to the gushing pipe. And then back to Urn.

  "But you're not-” he began.

  He spun around as Fergmen hit the guard hard with a length of broken pipe. When he turned back, Urn's spanner caught him full in the stomach. Urn wasn't strong, but it was a long spanner, and the well­known principles of leverage did the rest. He doubled up and then sagged backwards against one of the weights.

  What happened next happened in frozen time. Dea­con Cusp grabbed at the weight for support. It sank down, ponderously, his extra poundage adding to the weight of the water. He clawed higher. It sank further, dropping below the lip of the pit. He sought for bal­ance again, but this time it was against fresh air, and he tumbled on top of the falling weight.

  Urn saw his face staring up at him as the weight fell into the gloom.

  With a lever, he could change the world. It had certainly changed it for Deacon Cusp. It had made it stop existing.

  Fergmen was standing over the guard, his pipe raised.

  "I know this one," he said. "I'm going to give him a-”

  "Never mind about that!"

  "But-”

  Above them linkage clanked into action. There was a distant creaking of bronze against bronze.

  "
Let's get out of here," said Urn. "Only the gods know what's happening up there."

  And blows rained on the unmoving Moving Turtle's carapace.

  "Damn! Damn! Damn!" shouted Simony, thump­ing it again. "Move! I command you to move! Can you understand plain Ephebian! Move!"

  The unmoving machine leaked steam and sat there.

  And Om pulled himself up the slope of a small hill. So it came to this, then. There was only one way to get to the Citadel now.

  It was a million-to-one chance, with any luck.

  And Brutha stood in front of the huge doors, oblivious to the crowd and the muttering guards. The Quisition could arrest anyone, but the guards weren't certain what happened to you if you apprehended an arch­bishop, especially one so recently favored by the Prophet.

  Just a sign, Brutha thought, in the loneliness of his head.

  The doors trembled, and swung slowly outwards.

  Brutha stepped forward. He wasn't fully conscious now, not in any coherent way as understood by normal people. Just one part of him was still capable of looking at the state of his own mind and thinking: perhaps the Great Prophets felt like this all the time.

  The thousands inside the temple were looking around in confusion. The choirs of lesser Iams paused in their chant. Brutha walked on up the aisle, the only one with a purpose in the suddenly bewildered throng.

  Vorbis was standing in the center of the temple, under the vault of the dome. Guards hurried toward Brutha, but Vorbis raised a hand in a gentle but very positive movement.

  Now Brutha could take in the scene. There was the staff of Ossory, and Abbys's cloak, and the sandals of Cena. And, supporting the dome, the massive statues of the first four prophets. He'd never seen them. He'd heard about them every day of his childhood.

  And what did they mean now? They didn't mean anything. Nothing meant anything, if Vorbis was Prophet. Nothing meant anything, if the Cenobiarch was a man who'd heard nothing in the inner spaces of his own head but his own thoughts.

  He was aware that Vorbis's gesture had not only halted the guards, although they surrounded him like a hedge. It had also filled the temple with silence. Into which Vorbis spoke.