Small Gods

For as long as it lasted, anyway. Belief this hot, this desperate, never lasted long. Human minds could not sustain it. But while it did last, he was strong .
    The central spire of Cori Celesti rises up from the mountains at the Hub, ten vertical miles of green ice and snow, topped by the turrets and domes of Dunmanifestin.
    There the gods of the Discworld live.
    At the least, any god who is anybody. And it is strange that, although it takes years of effort and work and scheming for a god to get there, once there they never seem to do a lot apart from drink too much and indulge in a little mild corruption. Many systems of government follow the same broad lines.
    They play games. They tend to be very simple games, because gods are easily bored by complicated things. It is strange that, while small gods can have one aim in mind for millions of years, are in fact one aim, large gods seem to have the attention span of the common mosquito.
    And style? If the gods of the Discworld were people they would think that three plaster ducks is a bit avant-garde.
    There was a double door at the end of the main hall.
    It rocked to a thunderous knocking.
    The gods looked up vaguely from their various preoccupations, shrugged and turned away.
    The doors burst inward.
    Om strode through the debris, looking around with the air of one who has a search to complete and not a lot of time to do it in.
    “Right,” he said.
    Io, God of Thunder, looked up from his throne and waved his hammer threateningly.
    “Who are you?”
    Om strode toward the throne, picked up Io by his toga, and gave a quick jab with his forehead.
    Hardly anyone really believes in thunder gods any more…
    “Ow!”
    “Listen, friend. I’ve got no time for talking to some pantywaister in a sheet. Where’s the gods of Ephebe and Tsort?”
    Io, clutching at his nose, waved vaguely towards the center of the hall.
    “You nidn’t naf to ndo dat!” he said reproachfully.
    Om strode across the hall.
    In the center of the room was what at first looked like a round table, and then looked like a model of the Discworld, Turtle, elephants and all, and then in some undefinable way looked like the real Discworld, seen from far off yet brought up close to. There was something subtly wrong about the distances, a feeling of vast space curled up small. But possibly the real Discworld wasn’t covered with a network of glowing lines, hovering just above the surface. Or perhaps miles above the surface?
    Om hadn’t seen this before, but he knew what it was. Both a wave and a particle; both a map and the place mapped. If he focused on the tiny glittering dome on top of the tiny Cori Celesti, he would undoubtedly see himself, looking down on an even smaller model…and so on, down to the point where the universe coiled up like the tail of an ammonite, a kind of creature that lived millions of years ago and never believed in any gods at all…
    The gods clustered around it, watching intently.
    Om elbowed aside a minor Goddess of Plenty.
    There were dice floating just above the world, and a mess of little clay figures and gaming counters. You didn’t need to be even slightly omnipotent to know what was going on.
    “He hid by nose!”
    Om turned around.
    “I never forget a face, friend. Just take yours away, right? While you still have some left?”
    He turned back to the game.
    “S’cuse me,” said a voice by his waist. He looked down at a very large newt.
    “Yes?”
    “You not supposed do that here. No Smiting. Not up here . It the rules. You want fight, you get your humans fight his humans.”
    “Who’re you?”
    “P’Tang-P’Tang, me.”
    “ You’re a god?”
    “Definite.”
    “Yeah? How many worshipers have you got?”
    “Fifty-one!”
    The newt looked at him hopefully, and added, “Is that lots? Can’t count.”
    It pointed at a rather crudely molded figure on the beach in Omnia and said, “But got a stake!”
    Om looked at the figure of the little fisherman.
    “When he dies, you’ll have fifty worshipers,” he said.
    “That more or less than fifty-one?”
    “A lot less.”
    “Definite?”
    “Yes.”
    “No one tell me that.”
    There were several dozen gods watching the beach. Om vaguely remembered the Ephebian statues. There was the goddess with the badly carved owl. Yes.
    Om rubbed his head. This wasn’t god-like thinking. It seemed simpler when you were up here. It was all a game. You forgot that it wasn’t a game down there. People died. Bits got