Carpe Jugulum (Discworld 23)

'Hasn't worked,' said Granny.

'Mistress Weatherwax, would you like me to leave you here?' said Oats.

Granny sniffed. 'Wouldn't worry me,' she said.

'Would you like me to?' said Oats.

'It's not my mountain,' said Granny. 'I wouldn't be one to tell people where they should be.'

'I'll go if you want me to,' said Oats.

'I never asked you to come,' said Granny simply.

'You'd be dead if I hadn't!'

'That's no business of yours.'

'My god, Mistress Weatherwax, you try me sorely.'

'Your god, Mister Oats, tries everyone. That's what gods generally does, and that's why I don't truck with 'em. And they lays down rules all the time.'

'There have to be rules, Mistress Weatherwax.'

'And what's the first one that your Om requires, then?'

'That believers should worship no other god but Om,' said Oats promptly.

'Oh yes? That's gods for you. Very self-centred, as a rule.'

'I think it was to get people's attention,' said Oats. 'There are many commandments about dealing well with other people, if that's what you're getting at.'

'Really? And s'pose someone doesn't want to believe in Om and tries to live properly?'

'According to the prophet Brutha, to live properly is to believe in Om.'

'Oho, that's clever! He gets you coming and going,' said Granny. 'It took a good thinker to come up with that. Well done. What other clever things did he say?'

'He doesn't say things to be clever,' said Oats hotly. 'But, since you ask, he said in his Letter to the Simonites that it is through other people that we truly become people.'

'Good. He got that one right.'

'And he said that we should take light into dark places.'

Granny didn't say anything.

'I thought I'd mention that,' said Oats, 'because when you were... you know, kneeling, back in the forge ... you said something very similar...'

Granny stopped so suddenly that Oats nearly fell over.

'I did what?'

'You were mumbling and-'

'I was talkin' in my... sleep?'

'Yes, and you said something about darkness being where the light needs to be, which I remember because in the Book of Om-'

'You listened?'