But he was spread-eagled on a surface, his arms and legs chained to something he couldn't see. Sky above. The towering frontage of the temple to one side.
By turning his head a little he could see the silent crowd. And the brown metal of the iron turtle. He could smell smoke.
Someone was just tightening the shackles on his hand. Brutha looked over at the inquisitor. Now, what was it he had to say? Oh, yes.
“The Turtle Moves?” he mumbled.
The man sighed.
“Not this one, friend,” he said.
The world spun under Om as the eagle sought for shell?cracking height, and his mind was besieged by the tortoise's existential dread of being off the ground. And Brutha's thoughts, bright and clear this close to death . . .
I'm on my back and getting hotter and I'm going to die . . .
Careful, careful. Concentrate, concentrate. It'll let go any second . . .
Om stuck out his long scrawny neck, stared at the body just above him, picked what he hoped was about the right spot, plunged his beak through the brown feathers between the talons, and gripped.
The eagle blinked. No tortoise had ever done that to an eagle, anywhere else in history.
Om's thoughts arrived in the little silvery world of its mind:
“We don't want to hurt one another, now do we?”
The eagle blinked again.
Eagles have never evolved much imagination or forethought, beyond that necessary to know that a turtle smashes when you drop it on the rocks. But it was forming a mental picture of what happened when you let go of a heavy tortoise that was still intimately gripping an essential bit of you.
Its eyes watered.
Another thought crept into its mind.
“Now. You play, uh, ball with me, I'll play . . . ball with you. Understand? This is important. This is what I want you to do . . .”
The eagle soared on a thermal off the hot rocks, and sped towards the distant gleam of the Citadel.
No tortoise had ever done this before. No tortoise in the whole universe. But no tortoise had ever been a god, and knew the unwritten motto of the Quisition: Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum.
When you have their full attention in your grip, their hearts and minds will follow.
Urn pushed his way through the crowds, with Fergmen trailing behind. That was the best and the worst of civil war, at least at the start-everyone wore the same uniform. It was much easier when you picked enemies who were a different color or at least spoke with a funny accent. You could call them “gooks” or something. It made things easier.
Hey, Urn thought. This is nearly philosophy. Pity I probably won't live to tell anyone.
The big doors were ajar. The crowd was silent, and very attentive. He craned forward to see, and then looked up at the soldier beside him.
It was Simony.
"I thought-
“It didn't work,” said Simony, bitterly.
“Did you-?”
“We did everything! Something broke!”
“It must be the steel they make here,” said Urn. "The link pins on-