Small Gods

said.
    “They can’t,” said the tortoise. “Read my lips.”
    Brutha looked closer.
    “You haven’t got lips,” he said.
    “No, nor proper vocal cords,” agreed the tortoise. “I’m doing it straight into your head, do you understand?”
    “Gosh!”
    “You do understand, don’t you?”
    “No.”
    The tortoise rolled its eye.
    “I should have known. Well, it doesn’t matter. I don’t have to waste time on gardeners. Go and fetch the top man, right now.”
    “Top man?” said Brutha. He put his hand to his mouth. “You don’t mean…Brother Nhumrod?”
    “Who’s he?” said the tortoise.
    “The master of the novices!”
    “Oh, Me! ” said the tortoise. “No,” it went on, in a singsong imitation of Brutha’s voice, “I don’t mean the master of the novices. I mean the High Priest or whatever he calls himself. I suppose there is one?”
    Brutha nodded blankly.
    “High Priest, right?” said the tortoise. “High. Priest. High Priest.”
    Brutha nodded again. He knew there was a High Priest. It was just that, while he could just about encompass the hierarchical structure between his own self and Brother Nhumrod, he was unable to give serious consideration to any kind of link between Brutha the novice and the Cenobiarch. He was theoretically aware that there was one, that there was a huge canonical structure with the High Priest at the top and Brutha very firmly at the bottom, but he viewed it in the same way as an amoeba might view the chain of evolution all the way between itself and, for example, a chartered accountant. It was missing links all the way to the top.
    “I can’t go asking the—” Brutha hesitated. Even the thought of talking to the Cenobiarch frightened him into silence. “I can’t ask anyone to ask the High Cenobiarch to come and talk to a tortoise! ”
    “Turn into a mud leech and wither in the fires of retribution!” screamed the tortoise.
    “There’s no need to curse,” said Brutha.
    The tortoise bounced up and down furiously.
    “That wasn’t a curse! That was an order! I am the Great God Om!”
    Brutha blinked.
    Then he said, “No you’re not. I’ve seen the Great God Om,” he waved a hand making the shape of the holy horns, conscientiously, “and he isn’t tortoise-shaped. He comes as an eagle, or a lion, or a mighty bull. There’s a statue in the Great Temple. It’s seven cubits high. It’s got bronze on it and everything. It’s trampling infidels. You can’t trample infidels when you’re a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look. It’s got horns of real gold. Where I used to live there was a statue one cubit high in the next village and that was a bull too. So that’s how I know you’re not the Great God”—holy horns—“Om.”
    The tortoise subsided.
    “How many talking tortoises have you met?” it said sarcastically.
    “I don’t know,” said Brutha.
    “What d’you mean, you don’t know?”
    “Well, they might all talk,” said Brutha conscientiously, demonstrating the very personal kind of logic that got him Extra Melons. “They just might not say anything when I’m there.”
    “I am the Great God Om,” said the tortoise, in a menacing and unavoidably low voice, “and before very long you are going to be a very unfortunate priest. Go and get him.”
    “Novice,” said Brutha.
    “What?”
    “Novice, not priest. They won’t let me—”
    “Get him!”
    “But I don’t think the Cenobiarch ever comes into our vegetable garden,” said Brutha. “I don’t think he even knows what a melon is .”
    “I’m not bothered about that,” said the tortoise. “Fetch him now, or there will be a shaking of the earth, the moon will be as blood, agues and boils will afflict mankind and diverse ills will befall. I really mean it,” it added.
    “I’ll see what I can do,” said Brutha, backing away.
    “And I’m being very reasonable, in the circumstances!” the tortoise shouted after him.
    “You don’t sing badly, mind you!” it added, as an afterthought.
    “I’ve heard worse!” as Brutha’s grubby robe disappeared through the gateway.
    “Puts me in mind of that time there was the affliction of plague in Pseudopolis,” it said quietly, as the footsteps faded. “What a wailing and a gnashing of teeth was there, all right.” It sighed. “Great days. Great days!”

    Many feel they are called to the priesthood, but what they really hear is an inner voice saying, “It’s indoor work