Small Gods

Lightning struck a few yards away.

‘We’re in a boat with a large copper ball in the middle of a body of salt water,’ said Didactylos. ‘Thanks, Urn.’

‘And the temples of the gods would be magnificently lit, of course,’ said Urn quickly.

Didactylos tapped his stick on the hull. ‘It’s a nice idea, but you’d never get enough cats,’ he said. The sea surged up.

‘Jump into the water!’ Om shouted.

‘Why?’ said Brutha.

A wave almost overturned the boat. Rain hissed on the surface of the sphere, sent up a scalding spray.

‘I haven’t got time to explain! Jump overboard! It’s for the best! Trust me!’

Brutha stood up, holding the sphere’s framework to steady himself.

‘Sit down!’ said Urn.

‘I’m just going out,’ said Brutha. ‘I may be some time.’^{62}

The boat rocked under him as he half-jumped, half-fell into the boiling sea.

Lightning struck the sphere.

As Brutha bobbed to the surface he saw, for a moment, the globe glowing white hot and the Unnamed Boat, its screw almost out of the water, skimming away through the mists like a comet. It vanished in the clouds and rain. A moment later, above the noise of the storm, there was a muffled ‘boom’.

Brutha raised his hand. Om broke the surface, blowing seawater out of his nostrils.

‘You said it would be for the best!’ screamed Brutha.

‘Well? We’re still alive! And hold me out of the water! Tortoises can’t swim!’

‘But they might be dead!’

‘Do you want to join them?’

A wave submerged Brutha. For a moment the world was a dark green curtain, ringing in his ears.

‘I can’t swim with one hand!’ he shouted, as he broke surface again.

‘We’ll be saved! She wouldn’t dare!’

‘What do you mean?’

Another wave slapped at Brutha, and suction dragged at his robes.

‘Om?’

‘Yes?’

‘I don’t think I can swim …’

Gods are not very introspective. It has never been a survival trait. The ability to cajole, threaten and terrify has always worked well enough. When you can flatten entire cities at a whim, a tendency towards quiet reflection and seeing-things-from-the-other-fellow’s-point-of-view is seldom necessary.

Which had led, across the multiverse, to men and women of tremendous brilliance and empathy devoting their entire lives to the service of deities who couldn’t beat them at a quiet game of dominoes. For example, Sister Sestina of Quirm defied the wrath of a local king and walked unharmed across a bed of coals and propounded a philosophy of sensible ethics on behalf of a goddess whose only real interest was in hairstyles, and Brother Zephilite of Klatch left his vast estates and his family and spent his life ministering to the sick and poor on behalf of the invisible god F’rum, generally considered unable, should he have a backside, to find it with both hands, should he have hands. Gods never need to be very bright when there are humans around to be it for them.

The Sea Queen was considered fairly dumb even by other gods. But there was a certain logic to her thoughts, as she moved deep below the storm-tossed waves. The little boat had been a tempting target … but here was a bigger one, full of people, sailing right into the storm.

This one was fair game.

The Sea Queen had the attention span of an onion bahji.

And, by and large, she created her own sacrifices. And she believed in quantity.

The Fin of God plunged from wave crest to wave trough, the gale tearing at its sails. The captain fought his way through waist-high water to the prow, where Vorbis stood clutching the rail, apparently oblivious to the fact that the ship was wallowing half-submerged.

‘Sir! We must reef sail! We can’t outrun this!’

Green fire crackled on the tops of the masts. Vorbis turned. The light was reflected in the pit of his eyes.

‘It is all for the glory of Om,’ he said. ‘Trust is our sail, and glory is our destination.’

The captain had had enough. He was unsteady on the subject of religion, but felt fairly confident that after thirty years he knew something about the sea.

‘The ocean floor is our destination!’ he shouted.

Vorbis shrugged. ‘I did not say there would not be stops along the way,’ he said.

The captain stared at him and then fought his way back across the heaving deck. What he knew about the sea was that storms like this didn’t just happen. You didn’t just sail from calm water into the midst of a raging hurricane. This wasn’t the sea. This was personal.

Lightning struck the mainmast. There was a scream from the darkness as a mass of torn sail and rigging crashed on to the deck.

The captain half-swam, half-climbed up the ladder to the wheel, where the helmsman was a shadow in the spray and the eerie storm glow.

‘We’ll never make it alive!’

CORRECT.

‘We’ll have to abandon ship!’

NO. WE WILL TAKE IT WITH US. IT’S A NICE SHIP.

The captain peered closer in the murk.

‘Is that you, Bosun Coplei?’

WOULD YOU LIKE ANOTHER GUESS?