Small Gods

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 around 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 principle,” 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 yogurt practically free.
    “III. He responded, no.
    “IV. I said, it’s very healthy, it’s a live yogurt.
    “V. He said, yes, he could see.
    “VI. He was staring at the doors. This was about the time of