Small Gods

Brother Nhumrod was wrestling with impure thoughts in the privacy of his severe cell when he heard the fervent voice from the novitiates’ dormitory.

The Brutha boy was flat on his face in front of a statue of Om in His manifestation as a thunderbolt, shaking and gabbling fragments of prayer.

There was something creepy about that boy, Nhumrod thought. It was the way he looked at you when you were talking, as if he was listening.

He wandered out and prodded the prone youth with the end of his cane.

‘Get up, boy! What do you think you’re doing in the dormitory in the middle of the day? Mmm?’

Brutha managed to spin around while still flat on the floor and grasped the priest’s ankles.

‘Voice! A voice! It spoke to me!’ he wailed.

Nhumrod breathed out. Ah. This was familiar ground. Voices were right up Nhumrod’s cloister. He heard them all the time.

‘Get up, boy,’ he said, slightly more kindly.

Brutha got to his feet.

He was, as Nhumrod had complained before, too old to be a proper novice. About ten years too old. Give me a boy up to the age of seven, Nhumrod had always said.^{5}

But Brutha was going to die a novice. When they made the rules, they’d never allowed for anything like Brutha.

His big red honest face stared up at the novice master.

‘Sit down on your bed, Brutha,’ said Nhumrod.

Brutha obeyed immediately. Brutha did not know the meaning of the word disobedience. It was only one of a large number of words he didn’t know the meaning of.

Nhumrod sat down beside him.

‘Now, Brutha,’ he said, ‘you know what happens to people who tell falsehoods, don’t you?’

Brutha nodded, blushing.

‘Very well. Now tell me about these voices.’

Brutha twisted the hem of his robe in his hands.

‘It was more like one voice, master,’ he said.

‘—like one voice,’ said Brother Nhumrod. ‘And what did this voice say? Mmm?’

Brutha hesitated. Now he came to think about it, the voice hadn’t said anything very much. It had just spoken. It was in any case hard to talk to Brother Nhumrod, who had a nervous habit of squinting at the speaker’s lips and repeating the last few words they said practically as they said them. He also touched things all the time — walls, furniture, people — as if he was afraid the universe would disappear if he didn’t keep hold of it. And he had so many nervous tics that they had to queue. Brother Nhumrod was perfectly normal for someone who had survived in the Citadel for fifty years.

‘Well …’ Brutha began.

Brother Nhumrod held up a skinny hand. Brutha could see the pale blue veins in it.

‘And I am sure you know that there are two kinds of voice that are heard by the spiritual,’ said the master of novices. One eyebrow began to twitch.

‘Yes, master. Brother Murduck told us that,’ said Brutha, meekly.

‘—told us that. Yes. Sometimes, as He in His infinite wisdom sees fit, the God speaks to a chosen one and he becomes a great prophet,’ said Nhumrod. ‘Now, I am sure you wouldn’t presume to consider yourself one of them? Mmm?’

‘No, master.’

‘—master. But there are other voices,’ said Brother Nhumrod, and now his voice had a slight tremolo, ‘beguiling and wheedling and persuasive voices, yes? Voices that are always waiting to catch us off our guard?’

Brutha relaxed. This was more familiar ground.

All the novices knew about those kinds of voices. Except that usually they talked about fairly straightforward things, like the pleasures of night-time manipulation and the general desirability of girls. Which showed that they were novices when it came to voices. Brother Nhumrod got the kind of voices that were, by comparison, a full oratorio. Some of the bolder novices liked to get Brother Nhumrod talking on the subject of voices. He was an education, they said. Especially when little bits of white spit appeared at the corners of his mouth.

Brutha listened.

Brother Nhumrod was the novice master, but he wasn’t the novice master. He was only master of the group that included Brutha. There were others. Possibly someone in the Citadel knew how many there were. There was someone somewhere whose job it was to know everything.

The Citadel occupied the whole of the heart of the city of Kom, in the lands between the deserts of Klatch and the plains and jungles of Howondaland. It extended for miles, its temples, churches, schools, dormitories, gardens and towers growing into and around one another in a way that suggested a million termites all trying to build their mounds at the same time.

When the sun rose the reflection of the doors of the central Temple blazed like fire. They were bronze, and a hundred feet tall. On them, in letters of gold set in lead, were the Commandments. There were five hundred and twelve so far, and doubtless the next prophet would add his share.

The sun’s reflected glow shone down and across the tens of thousands of the strong-in-faith who laboured below for the greater glory of the Great God Om.