Small Gods

the third gong, right, so we all knew we’d got hours to wait. He was looking a bit down and it’s not as if he even ate the yogurt, which I admit was on the hum a bit, what with the heat. I mean, it was more alive than usual. I mean, I had to keep hitting it with a spoon to stop it getting out of the…all right. I was just explaining about the yogurt. All right . I mean, you want to put a bit of color in, don’t you? People like a bit of color. It was green.
    “VII. He just stood there, staring. So I said, got a problem, Your Reverence? Upon which he vouchsafed, I cannot hear him. I said, what is this he to whom what you refer? He said, if he was here, he would send me a sign.
    “VIII. There is no truth whatsoever in the rumor that I ran away at this juncture. It was just the pressure of the crowd. I have never been a friend of the Quisition. I might have sold them food, but I always charged them extra.
    “IX. Anyway, right, then he pushed through the line of guards what was holding the crowd back and stood right in front of the doors, and they weren’t sure what to do about bishops, and I heard him say something like, I carried you in the desert, I believed all my life, just give me this one thing.
    “X. Something like that, anyway. How about some yogurt? Bargain offer. Onna stick.”

    Om lifted himself over a creeper-clad wall by grasping tendrils in his beak and hauling himself up by the neck muscles. Then he fell down the other side. The Citadel was as far away as ever.
    Brutha’s mind was flaming like a beacon in Om’s senses. There’s a streak of madness in everyone who spends quality time with gods, and it was driving the boy now.
    “It’s too soon!” Om yelled. “You need followers! It can’t be just you! You can’t do it by yourself! You have to get disciples first!”

    Simony turned to look down the length of the Turtle. Thirty men were crouched under the shell, looking very apprehensive.
    A corporal saluted.
    “The needle’s there, sergeant.”
    The brass whistle whistled.
    Simony picked up the steering ropes. This was what war should be, he thought. No uncertainty. A few more Turtles like this, and no one would ever fight again.
    “Stand by,” he said.
    He pulled the big lever hard.
    The brittle metal snapped in his hand.
    Give anyone a lever long enough and they can change the world. It’s unreliable levers that are the problem.

    In the depths of the Temple’s hidden plumbing, Urn grasped a bronze pipe firmly with his spanner and gave the nut a cautious turn. It resisted. He changed position, and grunted as he used more pressure.
    With a sad little metal sound, the pipe twisted—and broke…
    Water gushed out, hitting him in the face. He dropped the tool and tried to block the flow with his fingers, but it spurted around his hands and gurgled down the channel towards one of the weights.
    “Stop it! Stop it!” he shouted.
    “What?” said Fergmen, several feet below him.
    “Stop the water!”
    “How?”
    “The pipe’s broken!”
    “I thought that’s what we wanted to do?”
    “Not yet!”
    “Stop shouting, mister! There’s guards around!”
    Urn let the water gush for a moment as he struggled out of his robe, and then he rammed the sodden material into the pipe. It shot out again with some force and slapped wetly against the lead funnel, sliding down until it blocked the tube that led to the weights. The water piled up behind it and then spilled over on to the floor.
    Urn glanced at the weight. It hadn’t begun to move. He relaxed slightly. Now, provided there was still enough water to make the weight drop…
    “Both of you—stand still.”
    He looked around, his mind going numb.
    There was a heavy-set man in a black robe standing in the stricken doorway. Behind him, a guard held a sword in a meaningful manner.
    “Who are you? Why are you here?”
    Urn hesitated for only a moment.
    He gestured with his spanner.
    “Well, it’s the seating, innit,” he said. “You’ve got shocking seepage around the seating. Amazing it holds together.”
    The man stepped into the room. He glared uncertainly at Urn for a moment and then turned his attention to the gushing pipe. And then back to Urn.
    “But you’re not—” he began.
    He spun around as Fergmen hit the guard hard with a length of broken pipe. When he turned back, Urn’s spanner caught him full in the stomach. Urn wasn’t strong, but it was a long spanner, and the well-known principles of leverage did the