Small Gods

There was another sound, a sort of gnat-like whining, that came and went…and promises in his head.
    They flashed past…faces talking to him, shapes, visions of greatness, moments of opportunity, picking him up, taking him high above the world, all this was his, he could do anything, all he had to do was believe, in me , in me , in me —
    An image formed in front of him. There, on a stone beside him, was a roast pig surrounded by fruit, and a mug of beer so cold the air was frosting on the sides.
    Mine!
    Brutha blinked. The voices faded. So did the food.
    He blinked again.
    There were strange after-images, not seen but felt. Perfect though his memory was, he could not remember what the voices had said or what the other pictures had been. All that lingered was a memory of roast pork and cold beer.
    “That’s because they don’t know what to offer you,” said Om’s voice, quietly. “So they try to offer you anything. Generally they start with visions of food and carnal gratification.”
    “They got as far as the food,” said Brutha.
    “Good job I overcame them, then,” said Om. “No telling what they might have achieved with a young man like yourself.”
    Brutha raised himself on his elbows.
    Vorbis had not moved.
    “Were they trying to get through to him, too?”
    “I suppose so. Wouldn’t work. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out. Never seen a mind so turned in on itself.”
    “Will they be back?”
    “Oh, yes. It’s not as if they’ve got anything else to do.”
    “When they do,” said Brutha, feeling lightheaded, “could you wait until they’ve shown me visions of carnal gratification?”
    “Very bad for you.”
    “Brother Nhumrod was very down on them. But I think perhaps we should know our enemies, yes?”
    Brutha’s voice faded to a croak.
    “I could have done with the vision of the drink,” he said, wearily.
    The shadows were long. He looked around in amazement.
    “How long were they trying?”
    “All day. Persistent devils, too. Thick as flies.”
    Brutha learned why at sunset.
    He met St. Ungulant the anchorite, friend of all small gods. Everywhere.

    “Well, well, well,” said St. Ungulant. “We don’t get very many visitors up here. Isn’t that so, Angus?”
    He addressed the air beside him.
    Brutha was trying to keep his balance, because the cartwheel rocked dangerously every time he moved. They’d left Vorbis seated on the desert twenty feet below, hugging his knees and staring at nothing.
    The wheel had been nailed flat on top of a slim pole. It was just wide enough for one person to lie uncomfortably. But St. Ungulant looked designed to lie uncomfortably. He was so thin that even skeletons would say, “Isn’t he thin?” He was wearing some sort of minimalist loin-cloth, insofar as it was possible to tell under the beard and hair.
    It had been quite hard to ignore St. Ungulant, who had been capering up and down at the top of his pole shouting “Coo-ee!” and “Over here!” There was a slightly smaller pole a few feet away, with an old-fashioned half-moon-cut-out-on-the-door privy on it. Just because you were an anchorite, St. Ungulant said, didn’t mean you had to give up everything .
    Brutha had heard of anchorites, who were a kind of one-way prophet. They went out into the desert but did not come back, preferring a hermit’s life of dirt and hardship and dirt and holy contemplation and dirt. Many of them liked to make life even more uncomfortable for themselves by being walled up in cells or living, quite appropriately, at the top of a pole. The Omnian Church encouraged them, on the basis that it was best to get madmen as far away as possible where they couldn’t cause any trouble and could be cared for by the community, insofar as the community consisted of lions and buzzards and dirt.
    “I was thinking of adding another wheel,” said St. Ungulant, “just over there. To catch the morning sun, you know.”
    Brutha looked around him. Nothing but flat rock and sand stretched away on every side.
    “Don’t you get the sun everywhere all the time?” he said.
    “But it’s much more important in the morning,” said St. Ungulant. “Besides, Angus says we ought to have a patio.”
    “He could barbecue on it,” said Om, inside Brutha’s head.
    “Um,” said Brutha. “What…religion…are you a saint of, exactly?”
    An expression of embarrassment crossed the very small amount of face between St. Ungulant’s eyebrows and his mustache.
    “Uh. None,