Small Gods

it among the briars and takes a minute or two to build a small cairn of stones in general thanks to whatever spirits might be around the place. Or a peculiarly shaped tree becomes associated with a cure for disease. Or someone carves a spiral on an isolated stone. Because what gods need is belief, and what humans want is gods.
    Often it stops there. But sometimes it goes further. More rocks are added, more stones are raised, a temple is built on the site where the tree once stood. The god grows in strength, the belief of its worshipers raising it upwards like a thousand tons of rocket fuel. For a very few, the sky’s the limit.
    And, sometimes, not even that.

    Brother Nhumrod was wrestling with impure thoughts in the privacy of his severe cell when he heard the fervent voice from the novitiates’ dormitory.
    The Brutha boy was flat on his face in front of a statue of Om in His manifestation as a thunderbolt, shaking and gabbling fragments of prayer.
    There was something creepy about that boy, Nhumrod thought. It was the way he looked at you when you were talking, as if he was listening .
    He wandered out and prodded the prone youth with the end of his cane.
    “Get up, boy! What do you think you’re doing in the dormitory in the middle of the day? Mmm?”
    Brutha managed to spin around while still flat on the floor and grasped the priest’s ankles.
    “Voice! A voice! It spoke to me!” he wailed.
    Nhumrod breathed out. Ah. This was familiar ground. Voices were right up Nhumrod’s cloister. He heard them all the time.
    “Get up, boy,” he said, slightly more kindly.
    Brutha got to his feet.
    He was, as Nhumrod had complained before, too old to be a proper novice. About ten years too old. Give me a boy up to the age of seven, Nhumrod had always said.
    But Brutha was going to die a novice. When they made the rules, they’d never allowed for anything like Brutha.
    His big red honest face stared up at the novice master.
    “Sit down on your bed, Brutha,” said Nhumrod.
    Brutha obeyed immediately. Brutha did not know the meaning of the word disobedience. It was only one of a large number of words he didn’t know the meaning of.
    Nhumrod sat down beside him.
    “Now, Brutha,” he said, “you know what happens to people who tell falsehoods, don’t you?”
    Brutha nodded, blushing.
    “Very well. Now tell me about these voices.”
    Brutha twisted the hem of his robe in his hands.
    “It was more like one voice, master,” he said.
    “—like one voice,” said Brother Nhumrod. “And what did this voice say? Mmm?”
    Brutha hesitated. Now he came to think about it, the voice hadn’t said anything very much. It had just spoken. It was, in any case, hard to talk to Brother Nhumrod, who had a nervous habit of squinting at the speaker’s lips and repeating the last few words they said practically as they said them. He also touched things all the time—walls, furniture, people—as if he was afraid the universe would disappear if he didn’t keep hold of it. And he had so many nervous tics that they had to queue. Brother Nhumrod was perfectly normal for someone who had survived in the Citadel for fifty years.
    “Well…” Brutha began.
    Brother Nhumrod held up a skinny hand. Brutha could see the pale blue veins in it.
    “And I am sure you know that there are two kinds of voice that are heard by the spiritual,” said the master of novices. One eyebrow began to twitch.
    “Yes, master. Brother Murduck told us that,” said Brutha, meekly.
    “—told us that. Yes. Sometimes, as He in His infinite wisdom sees fit, the God speaks to a chosen one and he becomes a great prophet,” said Nhumrod. “Now, I am sure you wouldn’t presume to consider yourself one of them? Mmm?”
    “No, master.”
    “—master. But there are other voices,” said Brother Nhumrod, and now his voice had a slight tremolo, “beguiling and wheedling and persuasive voices, yes? Voices that are always waiting to catch us off our guard?”
    Brutha relaxed. This was more familiar ground.
    All the novices knew about those kinds of voices. Except that usually they talked about fairly straightforward things, like the pleasures of nighttime manipulation and the general desirability of girls. Which showed that they were novices when it came to voices. Brother Nhumrod got the kind of voices that were, by comparison, a full oratorio. Some of the bolder novices liked to get Brother Nhumrod talking on the subject of voices. He was an education,