Page 8 (2/2)

Odd, that Made you wonder if it wasn't some kin f divine providence, except that you were divine providenceand on your back, getting hotter, preparing to die

That man who'd turned him over That expression on that mild face He'd remember that That expres?sion, not of cruelty, but of so That expression of terrible peace

A shadow crossed the sun Oentle, upside?down coht way up And then picked up his broolance

Oht?ened up

Soht And it's Me

Sergeant Simony waited until he was back in his own quarters before he unfolded his own scrap of paper

He was not at all surprised to find itof a turtle He was the lucky one

He'd lived for aback the writer of the Truth, to be a symbol for the movement It had to be him The only shame was that he couldn't kill Vorbis

But that had to happen where it could be seen

One day In front of the Temple Otherwise no one would believe

O around a while after Brutha's disappear?ance Hanging around is another thing tortoises are very good at They're practically world chaht Served hi to talk to a barely coherent novice

Of course, the skinny old one hadn't been able to hear him Nor had the chef Well, the old one was probably deaf As for the cookOodly powers, a special fate was going to lie in wait for the cook He wasn't sure exactly what it was going to be, but it was going to involve boiling water and probably carrots would coht of that for a moment But where did it leave hiarden, as a tortoise He kne he'd got in-he glared in dull terror at the tiny dot in the sky that the eye of le-and he'd better find a more terrestrial way out unless he wanted to spend the next ht struck hiain, he was going to spend quite so a fe hells And a couple of fresh Precepts, too Thou shalt not eat of the Meat of the Turtle That was a good one He was sur?prised he hadn't thought of it before Perspective, that's what it was

And if he'd thought of one like Thou Shalt Bloody Well Pick up Any Distressed Tortoises and Carry Them Anywhere They Want Unless, And This is Io, he wouldn't be in this trouble now

Nothing else for it He'd have to find the Ce?nobiarch hih Priest would be bound to be able to hear hih Priests tended to stay put He should be easy enough to find And while he od How hard could it be?

He'd have to go upwards That's what a hierarchyupwards

Wobbling slightly, his shell jerking from side to side, the former Great God Olory

He couldn't help noticing things had changed a lot in three thousand years

"Me?" said Brutha "But, but-

"I don't believe he h punishment is what you richly deserve, of course We all richly deserve," he added piously

"But why?"

-why? He said he just wants to talk to you"

"But there is nothing I could possibly say that a quisitor wants to hear!" wailed Brutha

"-Hear I a the dea?con's wishes," said Nhumrod

"No No Of course not," said Brutha He hung his head

"Good boy," said Nhumrod He patted as far up Brutha's back as he could reach "Just you trot along," he said "I'ht" And then, because he too had been brought up in habits of honesty, he added, "Probably all right"

There were few steps in the Citadel The progress of the many processions that entle slopes Such steps as there were, were low enough to enco steps of very old men And there were so many very old men in the Citadel

Sand blew in all the time from the desert Drifts built up on the steps and in the courtyards, despite everything that an ar novices could do

But a tortoise has very inefficient legs

"Thou Shall Build Shallower Steps," he hissed, hauling himself up

Feet thundered past hihfares of the Citadel, leading to the Place of Lariht his shell and spun him around

"Your feet to fly from your body and be buried in a termite mound!" he screamed

It made him feel a little better

Another foot clipped hi, against a curved rab with his jaws stopped hi by his mouth over a cellar

A tortoise has incredibly powerful jaw ht A tortoise in a crevassed, rocky landscape was used to this sort of thing He just had to get a leg hooked

Faint sounds drew themselves to his attention There was the clink of metal, and then a very soft whimper

Oh in one wall of a very long, low rooht-wells that ran everywhere through the Citadel

Vorbis had made a point of that The inquisitors shouldn't work in the shadows, he said, but in the light

Where they could see, very clearly, what they were doing

So could Orille for some time, unable to take his eye off the row of benches

On the whole, Vorbis discouraged red-hot irons, spiked chains, and things with drills and big screws on, unless it was for a public display on an i what you could do, he always said, with a simple knife