Small Gods (22 page)

He opened his eyes.

Simony was walking away. Everything looked lighter. It was still dark. But now he could see in the darkness. Everything was shades of gray. And the cobbles under his hand had somehow become a coarse black sand.

He looked up.

O
N YOUR FEET
, P
RIVATE
I
CHLOS
.

He stood up sheepishly. Now he was more than just a soldier, an anonymous figure to chase and be killed and be no more than a shadowy bit-player in other people’s lives.
Now he was Dervi Ichlos, aged thirty-eight, comparatively blameless in the general scheme of things, and dead.

He raised a hand to his lips uncertainly.

“You’re the judge?” he said.

N
OT ME
.

Ichlos looked at the sands stretching away. He knew instinctively what he had to do. He was far less sophisticated than General Fri’it, and took more notice of songs he’d learned in his childhood. Besides, he had an advantage. He’d had even less religion than the general.

J
UDGMENT IS AT THE END OF THE DESERT
.

Ichlos tried to smile.

“My mum told me about this,” he said. “When you’re dead, you have to walk a desert. And you see everything properly, she said. And remember everything right.”

Death studiously did nothing to indicate his feelings either way.

“Might meet a few friends on the way, eh?” said the soldier.

P
OSSIBLY
.

Ichlos set out. On the whole, he thought, it could have been worse.

Urn clambered across the shelves like a monkey, pulling books out of their racks and throwing them down to the floor.

“I can carry about twenty,” he said. “But which twenty?”

“
Always
wanted to do that,” murmured Didactylos happily. “Upholding truth in the face of tyranny and so on. Hah! One man, unafraid of the—”

“What to take? What to take?” shouted Urn.

“We don’t need Grido’s
Mechanics
,” said Didactylos. “Hey, I wish I could have seen the look on his face!
Damn good shot, considering. I just hope someone wrote down what I—”

“Principles of gearing! Theory of water expansion!” shouted Urn. “But we don’t need Ibid’s
Civics
or Gnomon’s
Ectopia
, that’s for sure—”

“What? They belong to all mankind!” snapped Didactylos.

“Then if all mankind will come and help us carry them, that’s fine,” said Urn. “But if it’s just the two of us, I prefer to carry something useful.”

“Useful? Books on mechanisms?”

“Yes! They can show people how to live better!”

“And
these
show people how to be people,” said Didactylos. “Which reminds me. Find me another lantern. I feel quite blind without one—”

The Library door shook to a thunderous knocking. It wasn’t the knocking of people who expected the door to be opened.

“We could throw some of the others into the—”

The hinges leapt out of the walls. The door thudded down.

Soldiers scrambled over it, swords drawn.

“Ah, gentlemen,” said Didactylos. “Pray don’t disturb my circles.”

The corporal in charge looked at him blankly, and then down at the floor.

“What circles?” he said.

“Hey, how about giving me a pair of compasses and coming back in, say, half an hour?”

“Leave him, corporal,” said Brutha.

He stepped over the door.

“I said leave him.”

“But I got orders to—”

“Are you deaf? If you are, the Quisition can cure
that,” said Brutha, astonished at the steadiness of his own voice.

“You don’t belong to the Quisition,” said the corporal.

“No. But I know a man who does,” said Brutha. “You are to search the palace for books. Leave him with me. He’s an old man. What harm can he do?”

The corporal looked hesitantly from Brutha to his prisoners.

“Very good, corporal. I will take over.”

They all turned.

“Did you hear me?” said Sergeant Simony, pushing his way forward.

“But the deacon told us—”

“Corporal?”

“Yes, sergeant?”

“The deacon is far away. I am right here.”

“Yes, sergeant.”

“Go!”

“Yes, sergeant.”

Simony cocked an ear as the soldiers marched away.

Then he stuck his sword in the door and turned to Didactylos. He made a fist with his left hand and brought his right hand down on it, palm extended.

“The Turtle Moves,”
he said.

“That all depends,” said the philosopher, cautiously.

“I mean I am…a friend,” he said.

“Why should we trust you?” said Urn.

“Because you haven’t got any choice,” said Sergeant Simony briskly.

“Can you get us out of here?” said Brutha.

Simony glared at him. “You?” he said. “Why should I get
you
out of here? You’re an inquisitor!” He grasped his sword.

Brutha backed away.

“I’m not!”

“On the ship, when the captain sounded you, you just said nothing,” said Simony. “You’re not one of us.”

“I don’t think I’m one of them, either,” said Brutha. “I’m one of mine.”

He gave Didactylos an imploring look, which was a wasted effort, and turned it towards Urn instead.

“I don’t know about this soldier,” he said. “All I know is that Vorbis means to have you killed and he
will
burn your Library. But I can help. I worked it out on the way here.”

“And don’t listen to him,” said Simony. He dropped on one knee in front of Didactylos, like a supplicant. “Sir, there are…some of us…who know your book for what it is…see, I have a copy…”

He fumbled inside his breastplate.

“We copied it out,” said Simony. “One copy! That’s all we had! But it’s been passed around. Some of us who could read, read it to the others! It makes so much sense!”

“Er…” said Didactylos. “What?”

Simony waved his hands in excitement. “Because we know it—I’ve been to places that—it’s true! There
is
a Great Turtle. The turtle
does
move! We don’t
need
gods!”

“Urn? No one’s stripped the copper off the roof, have they?” said Didactylos.

“Don’t think so.”

“Remind me not to talk to this chap outside, then.”

“You don’t understand!” said Simony. “I can save you. You have friends in unexpected places. Come on. I’ll just kill this priest…”

He gripped his sword. Brutha backed away.

“No! I can help, too! That’s why I came. When I saw you in front of Vorbis I knew what I could do!”

“What can you do?” sneered Urn.

“I can save the Library.”

“What? Put it on your back and run away?” sneered Simony.

“No. I don’t mean that. How many scrolls are there?”

“About seven hundred,” said Didactylos.

“How many of them are important?”

“All of them!” said Urn.

“Maybe a couple of hundred,” said Didactylos, mildly.

“Uncle!”

“All the rest is just wind and vanity publishing,” said Didactylos.

“But they’re
books!
”

“I may be able to take more than that,” said Brutha slowly. “Is there a way out?”

“There…could be,” said Didactylos.

“Don’t tell him!” said Simony.

“Then all your books will burn,” said Brutha. He pointed to Simony. “He said you haven’t got a choice. So you haven’t got anything to lose, have you?”

“He’s a—” Simony began.

“Everyone shut up,” said Didactylos. He stared past Brutha’s ear.

“There may be a way out,” he said. “What do you intend?”

“I don’t believe this!” said Urn. “There’s Omnians here and you’re telling them there’s another way out!”

“There’s tunnels all through this rock,” said Didactylos.

“Maybe, but we don’t
tell
people!”

“I’m inclined to trust this person,” said Didactylos. “He’s got an honest face. Speaking philosophically.”

“
Why
should we trust him?”

“Anyone stupid enough to expect us to trust him in these circumstances
must
be trustworthy,” said Didactylos. “He’d be too stupid to be deceitful.”

“I can walk out of here right now,” said Brutha. “And where will your Library be then?”

“You see?” said Simony.

“Just when things apparently look dark, suddenly we have unexpected friends everywhere,” said Didactylos. “What is your plan, young man?”

“I haven’t got one,” said Brutha. “I just do things, one after the other.”

“And how long will doing things one after another take you?”

“About ten minutes, I think.”

Simony glared at Brutha.

“Now get the books,” said Brutha. “And I shall need some light.”

“But you can’t even read!” said Urn.

“I’m not going to read them.” Brutha looked blankly at the first scroll, which happened to be
De Chelonian Mobile
.

“Oh. My god,” he said.

“Something wrong?” said Didactylos.

“Could someone fetch my tortoise?”

Simony trotted through the palace. No one was paying him much attention. Most of the Ephebian guard was outside the labyrinth, and Vorbis had made it clear to anyone who was thinking of venturing inside just what would happen to the palace’s inhabitants. Groups of Omnian soldiers were looting in a disciplined sort of way.

Besides, he was returning to his quarters.

There
was
a tortoise in Brutha’s room. It was sitting on the table, between a rolled-up scroll and a gnawed melon rind and, insofar as it was possible to tell with tortoises, was asleep. Simony grabbed it without ceremony, rammed it into his pack, and hurried back towards the Library.

He hated himself for doing it. The stupid priest had ruined everything! But Didactylos had made him promise, and Didactylos was the man who knew the Truth.

All the way there he had the impression that someone was trying to attract his attention.

“You can remember them just by looking?” said Urn.

“Yes.”

“The whole scroll?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“The word LIBRVM outside this building has a chip in the top of the first letter,” said Brutha. “Xeno wrote
Reflections
, and old Aristocrates wrote
Platitudes
, and Didactylos thinks Ibid’s
Discourses
are bloody stupid. There are six hundred paces from the Tyrant’s throne room to the Library. There is a—”

“He’s got a good memory, you’ve got to grant him that,” said Didactylos. “Show him some more scrolls.”

“How will we know he’s remembered them?” Urn demanded, unrolling a scroll of geometrical theorems. “He can’t read! And even if he could read, he can’t write!”

“We shall have to teach him.”

Brutha looked at a scroll full of maps. He shut his eyes. For a moment the jagged outline glowed against the inside of his eyelids, and then he felt them settle into
his mind. They were still there somewhere—he could bring them back at any time. Urn unrolled another scroll. Pictures of animals. This one, drawings of plants and lots of writing. This one, just writing. This one, triangles and things. They settled down in his memory. After a while, he wasn’t even aware of the scroll unrolling. He just had to keep looking.

He wondered how much he could remember, but that was stupid. You just remembered everything you saw. A tabletop, or a scroll full of writing. There was as much information in the grain and coloring of the wood as there was in Xeno’s
Reflections
.

Even so, he was conscious of a certain heaviness of mind, a feeling that if he turned his head sharply then memory would slosh out of his ears.

Urn picked up a scroll at random and unrolled it part-way.

“Describe what an Ambiguous Puzuma looks like,” he demanded.

“Don’t know,” said Brutha. He blinked.

“So much for Mr. Memory,” said Urn.

“He can’t
read
, boy. That’s not fair,” said the philosopher.

“All right. I mean—the fourth picture in the third scroll you saw,” said Urn.

“A four-legged creature facing left,” said Brutha. “A large head similar to a cat’s and broad shoulders with the body tapering towards the hindquarters. The body is a pattern of dark and light squares. The ears are very small and laid flat against the head. There are six whiskers. The tail is stubby. Only the hind feet are clawed, three claws on each foot. The fore feet are about the same length as the head and held up against the body. A band of thick hair—”

“That was fifty scrolls ago,” said Urn. “He saw the whole scroll for a second or two.”

They looked at Brutha. Brutha blinked again.

“You know
everything?
” said Urn.

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve got half the Library in your head!”

“I feel…a…bit…”

The Library of Ephebe was a furnace. The flames burned blue where the melted copper roof dripped on to the shelves.

All libraries, everywhere, are connected by the bookworm holes in space created by the strong space-time distortions found around any large collections of books.

Only a very few librarians learn the secret, and there are inflexible rules about making
use
of the fact. Because it amounts to time travel, and time travel causes big problems.

But if a library is on fire, and down in the history books as having been on fire…

There was a small pop, utterly unheard among the crackling of the bookshelves, and a figure dropped out of nowhere on to a small patch of unburned floor in the middle of the Library.

It looked ape-like, but it moved in a very purposeful way. Long simian arms beat out the flames, pulled scrolls off the shelves, and stuffed them into a sack. When the sack was full, it knuckled back into the middle of the room…and vanished, with another pop.