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Brutha shrugged, and got back to the ain unto Brutha, the Chosen One:

"Psst!"

Brutha hesitated Someone had definitely spoken to him from out of the air Perhaps it was a demon Novice master Brother Nhuhts and demons One led to the other Brutha was uncomfortably aware that he was probably overdue a de to do was to be resolute and repeat the Nine Fundamental Aphorisms

Once more the Great God Om spake unto Brutha, the Chosen One:

"Are you deaf, boy?"

The hoe thudded on to the baking soil Brutha spun around There were the bees, the eagle and, at the far end of the garden, old Brother Lu-Tze drea heap The prayerthe walls

He n hich the Prophet Ishkible had cast out spirits

"Get thee behind me, demon," he muttered

"I aarden was still empty

He fled

Many stories start long before they begin, and Brutha’s story had its origins thousands of years before his birth

There are billions of gods in the world They swar roe Most of theet worshiped, at least by anything bigger than bacteria, who never say their prayers and don’t demand ods-the spirits of places where two ant trails cross, the gods of rass roots And most of them stay that way

Because what they lack is belief

A handful, though, go on to greater things Anythinga lost la the briars and takes a eneral thanks to whatever spirits ht be around the place Or a peculiarly shaped tree becomes associated with a cure for disease Or soods need is belief, and what huods

Often it stops there But sooes further More rocks are added, more stones are raised, a terows in strength, the belief of its worshipers raising it upwards like a thousand tons of rocket fuel For a very few, the sky’s the limit

And, someti with ihts in the privacy of his severe cell when he heard the fervent voice from the novitiates’ dormitory

The Brutha boy was flat on his face in front of a statue of O frag creepy about that boy, Nhuht It was the way he looked at you when you were talking, as if he was listening

He wandered out and prodded the prone youth with the end of his cane

"Get up, boy! What do you think you’re doing in the dormitory in the ed to spin around while still flat on the floor and grasped the priest’s ankles

"Voice! A voice! It spoke to me!" he wailed

Nhuround Voices were right up Nhumrod’s cloister He heard thehtly ot to his feet

He was, as Nhumrod had complained before, too old to be a proper novice About ten years too old Give e of seven, Nhu to die a novice When theylike Brutha

His big red honest face stared up at the novice master

"Sit down on your bed, Brutha," said Nhumrod

Brutha obeyed i of the word disobedience It was only one of a large nu of

Nhumrod sat down beside him

"Now, Brutha," he said, "you knohat happens to people who tell falsehoods, don’t you?"

Brutha nodded, blushing

"Very well Now tell me about these voices"

Brutha twisted the hem of his robe in his hands

"It was more like one voice, master," he said

"-like one voice," said Brother Nhumrod "And what did this voice say? Mmm?"