Small Gods

amphora on board?” said Didactylos.
    “Yes.”
    “Pass it over, then.”
    White water trailed behind the boat. The paddles churned.
    “No wind. No rowers!” said Simony. “Do you even begin to understand what you have here, Urn?”
    “Absolutely. The operating principles are amazingly simple,” said Urn.
    “That wasn’t what I meant. I meant the things you could do with this power!”
    Urn pushed another log on the fire.
    “It’s just the transforming of heat into work,” he said. “I suppose…oh, the pumping of water. Mills that can grind even when the wind isn’t blowing. That sort of thing? Is that what you had in mind?”
    Simony the soldier hesitated.
    “Yeah,” he said. “Something like that.”
    Brutha whispered, “Om?”
    “Yes?”
    “Are you all right?”
    “It smells like a soldier’s knapsack in here. Get me out.”
    The copper ball spun madly over the fire. It gleamed almost as brightly as Simony’s eyes.
    Brutha tapped him on the shoulder.
    “Can I have my tortoise?”
    Simony laughed bitterly.
    “There’s good eating on one of these things,” he said, fishing out Om.
    “Everyone says so,” said Brutha. He lowered his voice to a whisper.
    “What sort of place is Ankh?”
    “A city of a million souls,” said the voice of Om, “many of them occupying bodies. And a thousand religions. There’s even a temple to the small gods! Sounds like a place where people don’t have trouble believing things. Not a bad place for a fresh start, I think. With my brains and your…with my brains, we should soon be in business again.”
    “You don’t want to go back to Omnia?”
    “No point,” said the voice of Om. “It’s always possible to overthrow an established god. People get fed up, they want a change. But you can’t overthrow yourself, can you?”
    “Who’re you talking to, priest?” said Simony.
    “I…er…was praying.”
    “Hah! To Om? You might as well pray to that tortoise.”
    “Yes.”
    “I am ashamed for Omnia,” said Simony. “Look at us. Stuck in the past. Held back by repressive monotheism. Shunned by our neighbors. What good has our God been to us? Gods? Hah!”
    “Steady on, steady on,” said Didactylos. “We’re on seawater and that’s highly conductive armor you’re wearing.”
    “Oh, I say nothing about other gods,” said Simony quickly. “I have not the right. But Om? A bogeyman for the Quisition! If he exists, let him strike me down here and now!”
    Simony drew his sword and held it up at arm’s length.
    Om sat peacefully on Brutha’s lap. “I like this boy,” he said. “He’s almost as good as a believer. It’s like love and hate, know what I mean?”
    Simony sheathed his sword again.
    “Thus I refute Om,” he said.
    “Yes, but what’s the alternative?”
    “Philosophy! Practical philosophy! Like Urn’s engine there. It could drag Omnia kicking and screaming into the Century of the Fruitbat!”
    “Kicking and screaming,” said Brutha.
    “By any means necessary,” said Simony.
    He beamed at them.
    “Don’t worry about him,” said Om. “We’ll be far away. Just as well, too. I don’t think Omnia’s going to be a popular country when news of last night’s work gets about.”
    “But it was Vorbis’s fault!” said Brutha out loud. “He started the whole thing! He sent poor Brother Murduck, and then he had him killed so he could blame it on the Ephebians! He never intended any peace treaty! He just wanted to get into the palace!”
    “Beats me how he managed that, too,” said Urn. “No one ever got through the labyrinth without a guide. How did he do it?”
    Didactylos’s blind eyes sought out Brutha.
    “Can’t imagine,” he said. Brutha hung his head.
    “He really did all that?” said Simony.
    “Yes.”
    “You idiot! You total sandhead!” screamed Om.
    “And you’d tell this to other people?” said Simony, insistently.
    “I suppose so.”
    “You’d speak out against the Quisition?”
    Brutha stared miserably into the night. Behind them, the flames of Ephebe had merged into one orange spark.
    “All I can say is what I remember,” he said.
    “We’re dead,” said Om. “Throw me over the side, why don’t you? This bonehead will want to take us back to Omnia!”
    Simony rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
    “Vorbis has many enemies,” he said, “in certain circumstances. Better he should be killed, but some would call that murder. Or even martyrdom. But a trial…if there was evidence…if they