“Can you remember everything that's ever happened to you?” said the stocky man, who had been watching Brutha carefully throughout the exchange. Brutha was glad of the interruption.
“No, lord. Most things.”
“You forget things?”
“Uh. There are sometimes things I don't remember.” Brutha had heard about forgetfulness, although he found it hard to imagine. But there were times in his life, in the first few years of his life especially, when there was . . . nothing. Not an attrition of memory, but great locked rooms in the mansion of his recollection. Not forgotten, any more than a locked room ceases to exist, but . . . locked.
“What is the first thing you can remember, my son?” said Vorbis, kindly.
“There was a bright light, and then someone hit me,” said Brutha.
The three men stared at him blankly. Then they turned to one another. Brutha, through the misery of his terror, heard snatches of whispering.
“. . . is there to lose? . . . ”Foolishness and probably demonic . . .“ ”Stakes are high . . .“ ”One chance, and they will be expecting us . . ."
And so on.
He looked around the room.
Furnishing was not a priority in the Citadel. Shelves, stools, tables . . . There was a rumor among the novices that priests towards the top of the hierarchy had golden furniture, but there was no sign of it here. The room was as severe as anything in the novices' quarters although it had, perhaps, a more opulent severity; it wasn't the forced bareness of poverty, but the starkness of intent.
“My son?”
Brutha looked back hurriedly.
Vorbis glanced at his colleagues. The stocky man nodded. The fat man shrugged.
“Brutha,” said Vorbis, “return to your dormitory now. Before you go, one of the servants will give you something to eat, and a drink. You will report to the Gate of Horns at dawn tomorrow, and you will come with me to Ephebe. You know about the delegation to Ephebe?”
Brutha shook his head.
“Perhaps there is no reason why you should,” said Vorbis. “We are going to discuss political matters with the Tyrant. Do you understand?”
Brutha shook his head.
“Good,” said Vorbis. “Very good. Oh, and-Brutha?”
“Yes, lord?”
“You will forget this meeting. You have not been in this room. You have not seen us here.”
Brutha gaped at him. This was nonsense. You couldn't forget things just by wishing. Some things forgot themselves-the things in those locked rooms-but that was because of some mechanism he could not access. What did this man mean?
“Yes, lord,” he said.
It seemed the simplest way.
Gods have no one to pray to.
The Great God Om scurried towards the nearest statue, neck stretched, inefficient legs pumping. The statue happened to be himself as a bull, trampling an infidel, although this was no great comfort.
It was only a matter of time before the eagle stopped circling and swooped.
Om had been a tortoise for only three years, but with the shape he had inherited a grab-bag of instincts, and a lot of them centered around a total terror of the one wild creature that had found out how to eat tortoise.
Gods have no one to pray to.
Om really wished that this was not the case.