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Then Fri'it said, "Are we safe up here?"

Drunah looked up An eagle circled over the dry hills He found hi was It certainly was good at so? It could hear a creature half a mile below in the silence of the desert What the hells-it couldn't talk as well, could it?

"Probably," he said

"Can I trust you?" said Fri'it

"Can I trust you?"

Fri'it druers on the parapet

"Uh," he said

And that was the problem It was the problem of all really secret societies They were secret How many members did the Turtle Movement have? No one knew, exactly What was the name of the man beside you? Two other members knew, because they would have introduced hie was dangerous If you knew, the inquisitions could wind it slowly out of you So you made sure you didn't know This s, and impossible outside of them

It was the problehout history: how to conspire without actually uttering words to an untrusted possible fellow-conspirator which, if reported, would point the accusing red-hot poker of guilt

The little beads of sweat on Drunah's forehead, despite the war the sa had become a habit

He clicked his knuckles nervously

"A holy war," he said That was safe enough The sentence included no verbal clue to what Fri'it thought about the prospect He hadn't said, "Ye god, not a daets hiibberish about the shape of the world, and we have to go to war?" If pressed, and indeed stretched and broken, he could always clai had been "At last! A not-to-be-loriously for Ohteous with Hooves of Iron!" It wouldn't make a lot of difference, evidence never did once you were in the deep levels where accusation had the status of proof, but at least it ht just have been wrong

"Of course, the Church has been far lessout over the desert "Much taken up with the mundane problems of the empire"

A statement Not a crack in it where you could insert a bone?-disjointer

"There was the crusade against the Hodgsonites," said Fri'it distantly "And the Subjugation of the Melchiorites And the Resolving of the false prophet Zeb And the Correction of the Ashelians, and the Shriving of the-

"But all that was just politics," said Drunah

"Hht"

"And, of course, no one could possibly doubt the wisdolory of the Great God"

"No None could doubt it," said Fri'it, who had walked across lorious victory, when you had a s At tio to sleep for fear of your dreah the Prophet Abbys, that there is no greater and more honorable sacrifice than one's own life for the God?"

"Indeed he did," said Fri'it He couldn't help recalling that Abbys had been a bishop in the Citadel for fifty years before the Great God had Chosen hi enemies had never come at him with a sword He'd never looked into the eyes of someone ished him dead-no, of course he had, all the time, because of course the Church had its politics-but at least they hadn't been holding the means to that end in their hands at the tiloriously for one's faith is a noble thing," Drunah intoned, as if reading the words off an internal notice-board

"So the prophets tell us," said Fri'it, miserably

The Great God moved in mysterious ways, he knew Undoubtedly He chose His prophets, but it seemed as if He had to be helped Perhaps He was too busy to choose for His, a lotthe services in the Great Te Vorbis-how easy it was to slip froht to the other There was a man touched by destiny A tiny part of Fri'it, the part that had lived for much of its life in tents, and been shot at quite a lot, and had been in the middle of melees where you could just as easily be killed by an ally as an ene It was a part of him that was due to spend all the eternities in all the hells, but it had already had a lot of practice

"You know I traveled a lot when I was er?" he said

"I have often heard you talk ly of your travels in heathen lands," said Drunah politely "Often bells are mentioned"

"Did I ever tell you about the Brown Islands?"

"Out beyond the end of the world," said Drunah "I re women find little white balls in oysters They dive for the else I remember," said Fri'it It was a lonelybut scrubland under a purple sky "The sea is strong there There are big waves, er than the ones in the Circle Sea, you understand, and the e planks of wood And when they wish to return to shore, they wait for a wave, and thenthey stand up, on the wave, and it carries them all the way to the beach"

"I like the story about the young swi women best," said Drunah

"Sonoring hi would stop the I learned"

Drunah caught the glint in his eye

"Ah," he said, nodding "Hoonderful of the Great God to put such instructive exae the strength of the wave," said Fri'it "And ride it"

"What happens to those who don't?"

"They drown Often So"

"Such is often the nature of waves, I understand"

The eagle was still circling If it had understood anything, then it wasn't showing it

"Useful facts to bear in htness "If ever one should find oneself in heathen parts"

"Indeed"

From prayer towers up and down the contours of the Citadel the deacons chanted the duties of the hour

Brutha should have been in class But the tutor priests weren't too strict with him After all, he had arrived word?-perfect in every Book of the Septateuch and knew all the prayers and hyrand useful Usefully doing so no one else wanted to do