Small Gods

wanted was someone to know about them, someone to even believe that they existed.
    There was jelly and ice-cream today, too.
    “All the more for us, eh, Angus?”
    Yes, said Angus.

    The fighting was over in Ephebe. It hadn’t lasted long, especially when the slaves joined in. There were too many narrow streets, too many ambushes and, above all, too much terrible determination. It’s generally held that free men will always triumph over slaves, but perhaps it all depends on your point of view.
    Besides, the Ephebian garrison commander had declared somewhat nervously that slavery would henceforth be abolished, which infuriated the slaves. What would be the point of saving up to become free if you couldn’t own slaves afterwards? Besides, how’d they eat?
    The Omnians couldn’t understand, and uncertain people fight badly. And Vorbis had gone. Certainties seemed less certain when those eyes were elsewhere.
    The Tyrant was released from his prison. He spent his first day of freedom carefully composing messages to the other small countries along the coast.
    It was time to do something about Omnia.

    Brutha sang.
    His voice echoed off the rocks. Flocks of scalbies shook off their lazy pedestrian habits and took off frantically, leaving feathers behind in their rush to get airborne. Snakes wriggled into cracks in the stone.
    You could live in the desert. Or at least survive…
    Getting back to Omnia could only be a matter of time. One more day…
    Vorbis trooped along a little behind him. He said nothing and, when spoken to, gave no sign that he had understood what had been said to him.
    Om, bumping along in Brutha’s pack, began to feel the acute depression that steals over every realist in the presence of an optimist.
    The strained strains of Claws of Iron shall Rend the Ungodly faded away. There was a small rockslide, some way off.
    “We’re alive,” said Brutha.
    “For now.”
    “And we’re close to home.”
    “Yes?”
    “I saw a wild goat on the rocks back there.”
    “There’s still a lot of ’em about.”
    “Goats?”
    “Gods. And the ones we had back there were the puny ones, mind you.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Om sighed. “It’s reasonable, isn’t it? Think about it. The stronger ones hang around the edge, where there’s prey…I mean, people. The weak ones get pushed out to the sandy places, where people hardly ever go—”
    “The strong gods,” said Brutha, thoughtfully. “Gods that know about being strong.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Not gods that know what it feels like to be weak…”
    “What? They wouldn’t last five minutes. It’s a god-eat-god world.”
    “Perhaps that explains something about the nature of gods. Strength is hereditary. Like sin.”
    His face clouded.
    “Except that…it isn’t. Sin, I mean. I think, perhaps, when we get back, I shall talk to some people.”
    “Oh, and they’ll listen, will they?”
    “Wisdom comes out of the wilderness, they say.”
    “Only the wisdom that people want. And mushrooms.”
    When the sun was starting to climb Brutha milked a goat. It stood patiently while Om soothed its mind. And Om didn’t suggest killing it, Brutha noticed.
    Then they found shade again. There were bushes here, low-growing, spiky, every tiny leaf barricaded behind its crown of thorns.
    Om watched for a while, but the small gods on the edge of the wilderness were more cunning and less urgent. They’d be here, probably at noon, when the sun turned the landscape into a hellish glare. He’d hear them. In the meantime, he could eat.
    He crawled through the bushes, their thorns scraping harmlessly along his shell. He passed another tortoise, which wasn’t inhabited by a god and gave him that vague stare that tortoises employ when they’re deciding whether something is there to be eaten or made love to, which are the only things on a normal tortoise mind. He avoided it, and found a couple of leaves it had missed.
    Periodically he’d stomp back through the gritty soil and watch the sleepers.
    And then he saw Vorbis sit up, look around him in a slow methodical way, pick up a stone, study it carefully, and then bring it down sharply on Brutha’s head.
    Brutha didn’t even groan.
    Vorbis got up and strode directly toward the bushes that hid Om. He tore the branches aside, regardless of the thorns, and pulled out the tortoise Om had just met.
    For a moment it was held up, legs moving slowly, before the deacon threw it overarm into the rocks.
    Then he