Small Gods

Om turned around.

‘I never forget a face, friend. Just take yours away, right? While you still have some left?’

He turned back to the game.

‘’S’cuse me,’ said a voice by his waist. He looked down at a very large newt.

‘Yes?’

‘You not supposed do that here. No Smiting. Not up here. It the rules. You want fight, you get your humans fight his humans.’

‘Who’re you?’

‘P’tang-P’tang, me.’

‘You’re a god?’

‘Definite.’

‘Yeah? How many worshippers have you got?’

‘Fifty-one!’

The newt looked at him hopefully, and added, ‘Is that lots? Can’t count.’

It pointed at a rather crudely moulded figure on the beach in Omnia and said, ‘But got a stake!’

Om looked at the figure of the little fisherman.

‘When he dies, you’ll have fifty worshippers,’ he said.

‘That more or less than fifty-one?’

‘A lot less.’

‘Definite?’

‘Yes.’

‘No one tell me that.’

There were several dozen gods watching the beach. Om vaguely remembered the Ephebian statues. There was the goddess with the badly carved owl. Yes.

Om rubbed his head. This wasn’t god-like thinking. It seemed simpler when you were up here. It was all a game. You forgot that it wasn’t a game down there. People died. Bits got chopped off. We’re like eagles up here, he thought. Sometimes we show a tortoise how to fly.

Then we let go.

He said, to the occult world in general, ‘There’s people going to die down there.’

A Tsortean God of the Sun did not even bother to look round.

‘That’s what they’re for,’ he said. In his hand he was holding a dice box that looked very much like a human skull with rubies in the eye-sockets.

‘Ah, yes,’ said Om. ‘I forgot that, for a moment.’ He looked at the skull, and then turned to the little Goddess of Plenty.

‘What’s this, love? A cornucopia? Can I have a look? Thanks.’

Om emptied some of the fruit out. Then he nudged the Newt God.

‘If I was you, friend, I’d find something long and hefty,’ he said.

‘Is one less than fifty-one?’ said P’Tang-P’Tang.

‘It’s the same,’ said Om, firmly. He eyed the back of the Tsortean God’s head.

‘But you have thousands,’ said the Newt God. ‘You fight for thousands.’

Om rubbed his forehead. I spent too long down there, he thought. I can’t stop thinking at ground level.

‘I think,’ he said, ‘I think, if you want thousands, you have to fight for one.’ He tapped the Solar God on the shoulder. ‘Hey, sunshine?’

When the God looked around, Om broke the cornucopia over his head.

It wasn’t a normal thunderclap. It stuttered like the shyness of supernovas, great ripping billows of sound that tore up the sky. Sand fountained up and whirled across the recumbent bodies lying face down on the beach. Lightning stabbed down, and sympathetic fire leapt from spear-tip and sword-point.

Simony looked up at the booming darkness.

‘What the hell’s happening?’ He nudged the body next to him.

It was Argavisti. They stared at one another.

More thunder smashed across the sky. Waves climbed up one another to rip into the fleet. Hull drifted with awful grace into hull, giving the bass line of the thunder a counterpoint of groaning wood.

A broken spar thudded into the sand by Simony’s head.

‘We’re dead if we stay here,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

They staggered through the spray and sand, amidst groups of cowering and praying soldiers, fetching up against something hard, half-covered.

They crawled into the calm under the Turtle.

Other people had already had the same idea. Shadowy figures sat or sprawled in the darkness. Urn sat dejectedly on his toolbox. There was a hint of gutted fish.

‘The gods are angry,’ said Borvorius.

‘Bloody furious,’ said Argavisti.

‘I’m not that happy myself,’ said Simony. ‘Gods? Huh!’

‘This is no time for impiety,’ said Rham-ap-Efan.

There was a shower of grapes outside.

‘Can’t think of a better one,’ said Simony.

A piece of cornucopia shrapnel bounced off the roof of the Turtle, which rocked on its spiked wheels.

‘But why be angry with us?’ said Argavisti. ‘We’re doing what they want.’

Borvorius tried to smile. ‘Gods, eh?’ he said. ‘Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.’

Someone nudged Simony, and passed him a soggy cigarette. It was a Tsortean soldier. Despite himself, he took a puff.

‘It’s good tobacco,’ he said. ‘The stuff we grow tastes like camel’s droppings.’

He passed it along to the next hunched figure.

THANK YOU.

Borvorius produced a flask from somewhere.

‘Will you go to hell if you have a drop of spirit?’ he said.

‘So it seems,’ said Simony, absently. Then he noticed the flask. ‘Oh, you mean alcohol? Probably. But who cares? I won’t be able to get near the fire for priests. Thanks.’

‘Pass it round.’

THANK YOU.

The Turtle rocked to a thunderbolt.

‘G’n y’himbe bo?’

They all looked at the pieces of raw fish, and Fasta Benj’s hopeful expression.

‘I could rake some of the coals out of the firebox from here,’ said Urn, after a while.

Someone tapped Simony on the shoulder, creating a strange tingling sensation.

THANK YOU. I HAVE TO GO.