Small Gods

philosophical word.”
    “And…what is this…” Brutha murmured, pointing to a circle under the drawing of the turtle.
    “That’s a plan view,” said Urn.
    “Map of the world,” said Didactylos.
    “Map? What’s a map?”
    “It’s a sort of picture that shows you where you are,” said Didactylos.
    Brutha stared in wonderment. “And how does it know?”
    “Hah!”
    “Gods,” prompted Om again. “We’re here to ask about gods!”
    “But is all this true? ” said Brutha.
    Didactylos shrugged. “Could be. Could be. We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork.”
    “You mean you don’t know it’s true?” said Brutha.
    “I think it might be,” said Didactylos. “I could be wrong. Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about.”
    “Talk about gods,” said Om.
    “Gods,” said Brutha weakly.
    His mind was on fire. These people made all these books about things, and they weren’t sure . But he’d been sure, and Brother Nhumrod had been sure, and Deacon Vorbis had a sureness you could bend horseshoes around. Sureness was a rock.
    Now he knew why, when Vorbis spoke about Ephebe, his face was gray with hatred and his voice was tense as a wire. If there was no truth, what was there left? And these bumbling old men spent their time kicking away the pillars of the world, and they’d nothing to replace them with but uncertainty. And they were proud of this?
    Urn was standing on a small ladder, fishing among the shelves of scrolls. Didactylos sat opposite Brutha, his blind gaze still apparently fixed on him.
    “You don’t like it, do you?” said the philosopher.
    Brutha had said nothing.
    “You know,” said Didactylos conversationally, “people’ll tell you that us blind people are the real business where the other senses are concerned. It’s not true, of course. The buggers just say it because it makes them feel better. It gets rid of the obligation to feel sorry for us. But when you can’t see you do learn to listen more. The way people breathe, the sounds their clothes make…”
    Urn reappeared with another scroll.
    “You shouldn’t do this,” said Brutha wretchedly. “All this…” His voice trailed off.
    “I know about sureness,” said Didactylos. Now the light, irascible tone had drained out of his voice. “I remember, before I was blind, I went to Omnia once. This was before the borders were closed, when you still let people travel. And in your Citadel I saw a crowd stoning a man to death in a pit. Ever seen that?”
    “It has to be done,” Brutha mumbled. “So the soul can be shriven and—”
    “Don’t know about the soul. Never been that kind of a philosopher,” said Didactylos. “All I know is, it was a horrible sight.”
    “The state of the body is not—”
    “Oh, I’m not talking about the poor bugger in the pit,” said the philosopher. “I’m talking about the people throwing the stones. They were sure all right. They were sure it wasn’t them in the pit. You could see it in their faces. So glad it wasn’t them that they were throwing just as hard as they could.”
    Urn hovered, looking uncertain.
    “I’ve got Abraxas’s On Religion ,” he said.
    “Old ‘Charcoal’ Abraxas,” said Didactylos, suddenly cheerful again. “Struck by lightning fifteen times so far, and still not giving up. You can borrow this one overnight if you want. No scribbling comments in the margins, mind you, unless they’re interesting.”
    “This is it!” said Om. “Come on, let’s leave this idiot.”
    Brutha unrolled the scroll. There weren’t even any pictures. Crabbed writing filled it, line after line.
    “He spent years researching it,” said Didactylos. “Went out into the desert, talked to the small gods. Talked to some of our gods, too. Brave man. He says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at.”
    Brutha unrolled a bit more of the scroll. Five minutes ago he would have admitted that he couldn’t read. Now the best efforts of the inquisitors couldn’t have forced it out of him. He held it up in what he hoped was a familiar fashion.
    “Where is he now?” he said.
    “Well, someone said they saw a pair of sandals with smoke coming out just outside his house a year or two back,” said Didactylos. “He might have, you know, pushed his luck.”
    “I think,” said Brutha, “that I’d better be going. I’m sorry to have intruded on your time.”
    “Bring it