Lu-Tze watched Brutha carefully from his little shed by the soil heaps.
It was another barn. Urn was seeing a lot of barns.
They'd started with a cart, and invested a lot of time in reducing its weight as much as possible. Gearing had been a problem. He'd been doing a lot of thinking about gears. The ball wanted to spin much faster than the wheels wanted to turn. That was probably a metaphor for something or other.
s smiled.
“Good Brother Nhumrod is correct,” he said. “Who had also not been ordained, unless the qualifications were somewhat relaxed in those days.”
There was a chorus of nervous laughs, such as there always is from people who owe their jobs and possibly their lives to a whim of the person who has just cracked the not very amusing line.
“Although the donkey was only made a bishop,” said Bishop “Deathwish” Treem.
“A role for which it was highly qualified,” said Vorbis sharply. “And now, you will all leave. Including Sub?deacon Nhumrod,” he added. Nhumrod went from red to white at this sudden preferment. “But Archbishop Brutha will remain. We wish to talk.”
The clergy withdrew.
Vorbis sat down on a stone chair under an elder tree. It was huge and ancient, quite unlike its short-lived relatives outside the garden, and its berries were ripening.
The Prophet sat with his elbows on the stone arms of the chair, his hands interlocked in front of him, and gave Brutha a long, slow stare.
“You are . . . recovered?” he said, eventually.
“Yes, lord,” said Brutha. "But, lord, I cannot be a bishop, I cannot even-
“I assure you the job does not require much intelligence,” said Vorbis. “If it did, bishops would not be able to do it.”
There was another long silence.
When Vorbis next spoke, it was as if every word was being winched up from a great depth.
“We spoke once, did we not, of the nature of reality?”
“Yes.”
“And about how often what is perceived is not that which is fundamentally true?”
“Yes.”
Another pause. High overhead, an eagle circled, looking for tortoises.
“I am sure you have confused memories of our wanderings in the wilderness.”
No."
“It is only to be expected. The sun, the thirst, the hunger . . .”
“No, lord. My memory does not confuse readily.”
“Oh, yes. I recall.”
“So do I, lord.”
Vorbis turned his head slightly, looking sidelong at Brutha as if he was trying to hide behind his own face.
“In the desert, the Great God Om spoke to me.”
“Yes, lord. He did. Every day.”