Small Gods

that there were whole ranges of sins only available in company. But that was because a moment’s reflection was the biggest sin of all. People allowed to be by themselves overmuch might indulge in solitary cogitation. It was well known that this stunted your growth. For one thing, it could lead to your feet being chopped off.
    So Brutha had to retire to the garden, with his God screaming at him from the pocket of his robe, where it was being jostled by a ball of garden twine, a pair of shears, and some loose seeds.
    Finally he was fished out.
    “Look, I didn’t have a chance to tell you,” said Brutha. “I’ve been chosen to go on a very important mission. I’m going to Ephebe, on a mission to the infidels. Deacon Vorbis picked me. He’s my friend.”
    “Who’s he?”
    “He’s the chief exquisitor. He…makes sure you’re worshiped properly.”
    Om picked up the hesitation in Brutha’s voice, and remembered the grating. And the sheer busyness below…
    “He tortures people,” he said coldly.
    “Oh, no! The in quisitors do that. They work very long hours for not much money, too, Brother Nhumrod says. No, the ex quisitors just…arrange matters. Every inquisitor wants to become an exquisitor one day, Brother Nhumrod says. That’s why they put up with being on duty at all hours. They go for days without sleep, sometimes.”
    “Torturing people,” mused the God. No, a mind like that one in the garden wouldn’t pick up a knife. Other people would do that. Vorbis would enjoy other methods.
    “Letting out the badness and the heresy in people,” said Brutha.
    “But people…perhaps…don’t survive the process?”
    “But that doesn’t matter,” said Brutha earnestly. “What happens to us in this life is not really real. There may be a little pain, but that doesn’t matter. Not if it ensures less time in the hells after death.”
    “But what if the exquisitors are wrong?” said the tortoise.
    “They can’t be wrong,” said Brutha. “They are guided by the hand of…by your hand…your front leg…I mean, your claw,” he mumbled.
    The tortoise blinked its one eye. It remembered the heat of the sun, the helplessness, and a face watching it not with any cruelty but, worse, with interest. Someone watching something die just to see how long it took. He’d remember that face anywhere. And the mind behind it—that steel ball of a mind.
    “But suppose something went wrong,” it insisted.
    “I’m not any good at theology,” said Brutha. “But the testament of Ossory is very clear on the matter. They must have done something, otherwise you in your wisdom would not direct the Quisition to them.”
    “Would I?” said Om, still thinking of that face. “It’s their fault they get tortured. Did I really say that?”
    “‘We are judged in life as we are in death’…Ossory III, chapter VI, verse 56. My grandmother said that when people die they come before you, they have to cross a terrible desert and you weigh their heart in some scales,” said Brutha. “And if it weighs less than a feather, they are spared the hells.”
    “Goodness me,” said the tortoise. And it added: “Has it occurred to you, lad, that I might not be able to do that and be down here walking around with a shell on?”
    “You could do anything you wanted to,” said Brutha.
    Om looked up at Brutha.
    He really believes, he thought. He doesn’t know how to lie.
    The strength of Brutha’s belief burned in him like a flame.
    And then the truth hit Om like the ground hits tortoises after an attack of eagles.
    “You’ve got to take me to this Ephebe place,” he said urgently.
    “I’ll do whatever you want,” said Brutha. “Are you going to scourge it with hoof and flame?”
    “Could be, could be,” said Om. “But you’ve got to take me.” He was trying to keep his innermost thoughts calm, in case Brutha heard. Don’t leave me behind!
    “But you could get there much quicker if I left you,” said Brutha. “They are very wicked in Ephebe. The sooner it is cleansed, the better. You could stop being a tortoise and fly there like a burning wind and scourge the city.”
    A burning wind, thought Om. And the tortoise thought of the silent wastes of the deep desert, and the chittering and sighing of the gods who had faded away to mere djinns and voices on the air.
    Gods with no more believers.
    Not even one. One was just enough.
    Gods who had been left behind .
    And the thing about Brutha’s flame of belief was