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The tortoise gave him a one-eyed stare for a while Then it said: "Tall fellow? Full beard? Eyes wobbling all over the place?"

"What?" said Brutha

"I think I recall him," said the tortoise "Eyes wobbled when he talked And he talked all the time To himself Walked into rocks a lot"

"He wandered in the wilderness for three months," said Brutha

"That explains it, then," said the tortoise "There's not a lot to eat there that isn't mushrooms"

"Perhaps you are a demon," said Brutha "The Septateuch forbids us to have discourse with de de in faith-

"Your teeth to abscess with red-hot heat!"

"Pardon?"

"I swear to ods!"

Brutha tapped the tortoise on the shell

"Let , de, if he listened hard

This wasn't the greatest statue of Om, but it was the closest It was down in the pit level reserved for prisoners and heretics And it was ether

The pits were deserted except for a couple of novices pushing a rough cart in the distance

"It's a big bull," said the tortoise

"The very likeness of the Great God Om in one of his worldly incarnations!" said Brutha proudly "And you say you're him?"

"I haven't been well lately," said the tortoise

Its scrawny neck stretched out further

"There's a door on its back," it said "Why's there a door on its back?"

"So that the sinful can be put in," said Brutha

"Why's there another one in its belly?"

"So the purified ashes can be let out," said Brutha "And the sodly"

The tortoise craned its neck round at the rows of barred doors It looked up at the soot-encrusted walls It looked down at the now empty fire trench under the iron bull It reached a conclusion It blinked its one eye

"People?" it said eventually "You roast people in it?"

"There!" said Brutha triumphantly "And thus you prove you are not the Great God! He would know that of course we do not burn people in there Burn people in there? That would be unheard of!"

"Ah," said the tortoise "Then what-?"

"It is for the destruction of heretical materials and other such rubbish," said Brutha

"Very sensible," said the tortoise

"Sinners and criminals are purified by fire in the Quisition's pits or sometimes in front of the Great Temple," said Brutha "The Great God would know that"

"I think I otten," said the tortoise quietly

"The Great God Om"-holy horns-"would know that He Hihed and assuht was being undertaken " `Let the holy fire destroy utterly the unbeliever' That's verse sixty-five"

"Did I say that?"

"In the Year of the Lenient Vegetable the Bishop Kreeblephor converted a demon by the power of reason alone," said Brutha "It actually joined the Church and beca I don't ue cannot te in runted with effort

"Smite you with thunderbolts!"

A small, a very small black cloud appeared over Brutha's head and a sed an eyebrow

It was about the sath as the spark off a cat's fur in hot dry weather

"Ouch!"

"Now do you believe me?" said the tortoise

There was a bit of breeze on the roof of the Citadel It also offered a good view of the high desert

Fri'it and Drunah waited for a while to get their breath back