“That's right, master.”
“But the tavern is outside.”
“Yes.”
“Then he must have flown over the wall, do you think?”
“I'm sure it was him, master.”
“Then . . . maybe he came later. Maybe he hadn't gone in when you saw him.”
“It can only be that, master. The keepers of the labyrinth are unbribable.”
Didactylos clipped Urn across the back of the head with his lantern.
“Stupid boy! I've told you about that sort of statement.”
“I mean, they are not easily bribable, master. Not for all the gold in Omnia, for example.”
“That's more like it.”
“Do you think that tortoise was a god, master?”
“He's going to be in big trouble in Omnia if he is. They've got a bastard of a god there. Did you ever read old Abraxas?”
“No, master.”
“Very big on gods. Big gods man. Always smelled of burnt hair. Naturally resistant.”
Om crawled slowly along the length of a line.
“Stop walking up and down like that,” he said, “I can't concentrate.”
“How can people talk like that?” Brutha asked the empty air. “Acting as if they're glad they don't know things! Finding out more and more things they don't know! It's like children proudly coming to show you a full potty!”
Om marked his place with a claw.
“But they find things out,” he said. “This Abraxas was a thinker and no mistake. I didn't know some of this stuff. Sit down!”
Brutha obeyed.
“Right,” said Om. “Now . . . listen. Do you know how gods get power?”
“By people believing in them,” said Brutha. “Millions of people believe in you.”
Om hesitated.
All right, all right. We are here and it is now. Sooner or later he'll find out for himself . . .
“They don't believe,” said Om.
"But-
“It's happened before,” said the tortoise. “Dozens of times. D'you know Abraxas found the lost city of Ee? Very strange carvings, he says. Belief, he says. Belief shifts. People start out believing in the god and end up believing in the structure.”
o;It's all right,” said Didactylos. “I don't put any oil in it.”
“A lantern that doesn't shine for a man that doesn't see?”