Small Gods Read Free Page B

comprehensible than most things.
    “Hey, you!”
    Brutha straightened up.
    “I do not hear you, oh foul succubus,” he said.
    “Oh yes you do, boy. Now, what I want you to do is—”
    “I’ve got my fingers in my ears!”
    “Suits you. Suits you. Makes you look like a vase. Now—”
    “I’m humming a tune! I’m humming a tune!”
    Brother Preptil, the master of the music, had described Brutha’s voice as putting him in mind of a disappointed vulture arriving too late at the dead donkey. Choral singing was compulsory for novitiates, but after much petitioning by Brother Preptil a special dispensation had been made for Brutha. The sight of his big round face screwed up in the effort to please was bad enough, but what was worse was listening to his voice, which was certainly powerful and full of intent conviction, swinging backward and forward across the tune without ever quite hitting it.
    He got Extra Melons instead.
    Up in the prayer towers a flock of crows took off in a hurry.
    After a full chorus of He is Trampling the Unrighteous with Hooves of Hot Iron Brutha unplugged his ears and risked a quick listen.
    Apart from the distant protests of the crows, there was silence.
    It worked. Put your trust in the God, they said. And he always had. As far back as he could remember.
    He picked up his hoe and turned back, in relief, to the vines.
    The hoe’s blade was about to hit the ground when Brutha saw the tortoise.
    It was small and basically yellow and covered with dust. Its shell was badly chipped. It had one beady eye—the other had fallen to one of the thousands of dangers that attend any slow-moving creature which lives an inch from the ground.
    He looked around. The gardens were well inside the temple complex, and surrounded by high walls.
    “How did you get in here, little creature?” he said. “Did you fly?”
    The tortoise stared monoptically at him. Brutha felt a bit homesick. There had been plenty of tortoises in the sandy hills back home.
    “I could give you some lettuce,” said Brutha. “But I don’t think tortoises are allowed in the gardens. Aren’t you vermin?”
    The tortoise continued to stare. Practically nothing can stare like a tortoise.
    Brutha felt obliged to do something.
    “There’s grapes,” he said. “Probably it’s not sinful to give you one grape. How would you like a grape, little tortoise?”
    “How would you like to be an abomination in the nethermost pit of chaos?” said the tortoise.
    The crows, who had fled to the outer walls, took off again to a rendering of The Way of the Infidel Is A Nest Of Thorns .
    Brutha opened his eyes and took his fingers out of his ears again.
    The tortoise said, “I’m still here.”
    Brutha hesitated. It dawned on him, very slowly, that demons and succubi didn’t turn up looking like small old tortoises. There wouldn’t be much point. Even Brother Nhumrod would have to agree that when it came to rampant eroticism, you could do a lot better than a one-eyed tortoise.
    “I didn’t know tortoises could talk,” he 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