Carpe Jugulum (Discworld 23)

'He's not going anywhere,' said Nanny, striding into the little room by the door. 'And I don't reckon they're planning to kill him. Anyway, he's got some protection now.'

'I think these really are new vampires,' said Agnes. 'They really aren't like the old sort.'

'Then we face 'em here and now,' said Nanny. 'That's what Esme would do, sure enough.'

'But are we strong enough?' said Agnes. Granny wouldn't have asked, said Perdita.

'There's three of us, isn't there?' said Nanny. She produced a flask and uncorked it. 'And a bit of help. Anyone else want some?'

'That's brandy, Nanny!' said Magrat. 'Do you want to face the vampires drunk?'

'Sounds a whole lot better than facin' them sober,' said Nanny, taking a gulp and shuddering. 'Only sensible bit of advice Agnes got from Mister Oats, I reckon. Vampire hunters need to be a little bit tipsy, he said. Well, I always listen to good advice...'

Even inside Mightily Oats's tent the candle streamed in the wind. He sat gingerly on his camp bed, because sudden movements made it fold up with nail-blackening viciousness, and leafed through his notebooks in a state of growing panic.

He hadn't come here to be a vampire expert. 'Revenants and Ungodly Creatures' had been a one-hour lecture from deaf Deacon Thrope every fortnight, for Om's sake! it hadn't even counted towards the final examination score! They'd spent twenty times that on Comparative Theology, and right now he wished, he really wished, that they'd found time to tell him, for example, exactly where the heart was and how much force you needed to drive a stake through it.

Ah... here they were, a few pages of scribble, saved only because the notes for his essay on Thrum's Lives of the Prophets were on the other side.

'... The blood is the life... vampires are subservient to the one who turned them into a vampire... allyl disulphide, active ingredient in garlic... porphyria, lack of? Learned reaction?... native soil v. important... as many as possible will drink of a victim so that he is the slave of all... "clustersuck"... blood as an unholy sacrament... Vampire controls: bats, rats, creatures of the night, weather... contrary to legend, most victims merely become passive, NOT vampires... intended vampire sufers terrible torments et craving for blood... socks... Garlic, holy icons... sunlight-deadly?... kill vampire, release all victims... physical strength &...'

Why hadn't anyone told them this was important? He'd covered half the page with a drawing of Deacon Thrope, which was practically a still life.

Oats dropped the book into his pocket and grasped his medallion hopefully. After four years of theological college he wasn't at all certain of what he believed, and this was partly because the Church had schismed so often that occasionally the entire curriculum would alter in the space of one afternoon. But also-

They had been warned about it. Don't expect it, they'd said. It doesn't happen to anyone except the prophets. Om doesn't work like that. Om works from inside.

-but he'd hoped that, just once, Om would make himself known in some obvious and unequivocal way that couldn't be mistaken for wind or a guilty conscience. Just once he'd like the clouds to part for the space of ten seconds and a voice to cry out, 'YES, MIGHTILYPRAISEWORTHY-ARE-YE-WHO-EXALTETH-OM OATS! IT'S ALL COMPLETELY TRUE! INCIDENTALLY, THAT WAS A VERY THOUGHTFUL PAPER YOU WROTE ON THE CRISIS OF RELIGION IN A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY!'

It wasn't that he'd lacked faith. But faith wasn't enough. He'd wanted knowledge.

Right now he'd settle for a reliable manual of vampire disposal.

He stood up. Behind him, unheeded, the terrible camp bed sprang shut.

He'd found knowledge, and knowledge hadn't helped.

Had not Jotto caused the Leviathan of Terror to throw itself on to the land and the seas to turn red with blood? Had not Orda, strong in his faith, caused a sudden famine thoughout the land of Smale?

They certainly had. He believed it utterly. But a part of him also couldn't forget reading about the tiny little creatures that caused the rare red tides off the coast of Urt and the effect this apparently had on local sea life, and about the odd wind cycle that sometimes kept rainclouds away from Smale for years at a time.

This had been... worrying.

It was because he was so very good at old languages that he'd been allowed to study in the new libraries that were springing up around the Citadel, and this had been fresh ground for worry, because the seeker after truth had found truths instead. The Third Journey of the Prophet Cena, for example, seemed remarkably like a retranslation of the Testament of Sand in the Laotan Book of the Whole. On one shelf alone he found forty-three remarkably similar accounts of a great flood, and in every single one of them a man very much like Bishop Horn had saved the elect of mankind by building a magical boat. Details varied, of course. Sometimes the boat was made of wood, sometimes of banana leaves. Sometimes the news of the emerging dry land was brought by a swan, sometimes by an iguana. Of course these stories in the chronicles of other religions were mere folktales and myth, while the voyage detailed in the Book of Cena was holy truth. But nevertheless...

Oats had gone on to be fully ordained, but he'd progressed from Slightly Reverend to Quite Reverend a troubled young man. He'd wanted to discuss his findings with someone, but there were so many schisms going on that no one would stand still long enough to listen. The hammering of clerics as they nailed their own versions of the truth of Om on the temple doors was deafening, and for a brief while he'd even contemplated buying a roll of paper and a hammer of his own and putting his name on the waiting list for the doors, but he'd overruled himself.

Because he was, he knew, in two minds about everything.

At one point he'd considered asking to be exorcized but had drawn back from this because the Church traditionally used fairly terminal methods for this and in any case serious men who seldom smiled would not be amused to hear that the invasive spirit he wanted exorcized was his own.

He called the voices the Good Oats and the Bad Oats. The trouble was, each of them agreed with the terminology but applied it in different ways.

Even when he was small there'd been a part of him that thought the temple was a silly boring place, and tried to make him laugh when he was supposed to be listening to sermons. It had grown up with him. It was the Oats that read avidly and always remembered those passages which cast doubt on the literal truth of the Book of Om  -  and nudged him and said, if this isn't true, what can you believe?

And the other half of him would say: there must be other kinds of truth.

And he'd reply: other kinds than the kind that is actually true, you mean?