Small Gods

Probably no one did know how many of them there were. Some things have a way of going critical. Certainly there was only one Cenobiarch,^{6} the Superior Iam. That was certain. And six Archpriests. And thirty lesser Iams. And hundreds of bishops, deacons, sub-deacons and priests. And novices like rats in a grain store. And craftsmen, and bull breeders, and torturers, and Vestigial Virgins …^{7}

No matter what your skills, there was a place for you in the Citadel.

And if your skill lay in asking the wrong kinds of questions or losing the righteous kind of wars, the place might just be the furnaces of purity, or the Quisition’s pits of justice.

A place for everyone. And everyone in their place.

The sun beat down on the temple garden.

The Great God Om tried to stay in the shade of a melon vine. He was probably safe here, here inside these walls and with the prayer towers all around, but you couldn’t be too careful. He’d been lucky once, but it was asking too much to expect to be lucky again.

The trouble with being a god is that you’ve got no one to pray to.

He crawled forward purposefully towards the old man shovelling muck until, after much exertion, he judged himself to be within earshot.

He spake thusly: ‘Hey, you!’

There was no answer. There was not even any suggestion that anything had been heard.

Om lost his temper and turned Lu-Tze into a lowly worm in the deepest cesspit of hell, and then got even more angry when the old man went on peacefully shovelling.

‘The devils of infinity fill your living bones with sulphur!’ he screamed.

This did not make a great deal of difference.

‘Deaf old bugger,’ muttered the Great God Om.

Or perhaps there was someone who did know all there was to be known about the Citadel. There’s always someone who collects knowledge, not because of a love of the stuff but in the same way that a magpie collects glitter or a caddis fly collects little bits of twigs and rock. And there’s always someone who has to do all those things that need to be done but which other people would rather not do or, even, acknowledge existed.

The third thing the people noticed about Vorbis was his height. He was well over six feet tall, but stick-thin, like a normal proportioned person modelled in clay by a child and then rolled out.

The second thing that people noticed about Vorbis was his eyes. His ancestors had come from one of the deep desert tribes that had evolved the peculiar trait of having dark eyes — not just dark of pupil, but almost black of eyeball. It made it very hard to tell where he was looking. It was as if he had sunglasses on under his skin.

But the first thing they noticed was his skull.

Deacon Vorbis was bald by design. Most of the Church’s ministers, as soon as they were ordained, cultivated long hair and beards that you could lose a goat in. But Vorbis shaved all over. He gleamed. And lack of hair seemed to add to his power. He didn’t menace. He never threatened. He just gave everyone the feeling that his personal space radiated several metres from his body, and that anyone approaching Vorbis was intruding on something important. Superiors fifty years his senior felt apologetic about interrupting whatever it was he was thinking about.

It was almost impossible to know what he was thinking about and no one ever asked. The most obvious reason for this was that Vorbis was the head of the Quisition, whose job it was to do all those things that needed to be done and which other people would rather not do.

You do not ask people like that what they are thinking about in case they turn around very slowly and say ‘You’.

The highest post that could be held in the Quisition was that of deacon, a rule instituted hundreds of years ago to prevent this branch of the Church becoming too big for its boots.[2] But with a mind like his, everyone said, he could easily be an archpriest by now, or even an Iam.

Vorbis didn’t worry about that kind of trivia. Vorbis knew his destiny. Hadn’t the God himself told him?

***

‘There,’ said Brother Nhumrod, patting Brutha on the shoulder. ‘I’m sure you will see things clearer now.’

Brutha felt that a specific reply was expected.

‘Yes, master,’ he said. ‘I’m sure I shall.’

‘—shall. It is your holy duty to resist the voices at all times,’ said Nhumrod, still patting.

‘Yes, master. I will. Especially if they tell me to do any of the things you mentioned.’

‘—mentioned. Good. Good. And if you hear them again, what will you do? Mmm?’

‘Come and tell you,’ said Brutha, dutifully.

‘—tell you. Good. Good. That’s what I like to hear,’ said Nhumrod. ‘That’s what I tell all my boys. Remember that I’m always here to deal with any little problems that may be bothering you.’

‘Yes, master. Shall I go back to the garden now?’

‘—now. I think so. I think so. And no more voices, d’you hear?’ Nhumrod waved a finger of his non-patting hand. A cheek puckered.

‘Yes, master.’

‘What were you doing in the garden?’

‘Hoeing the melons, master,’ said Brutha.