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"Nice try," said Om

The sun was up Already the rocks arm to the touch "Get some rest," said Om, kindly "I'll keep watch"

"Watch for what?"

"I'll watch and find out"

Brutha led Vorbis into the shade of a large boulder, and gently pushed him down Then he lay down too

The thirst wasn't too bad yet He'd drunk from the teht find a snakeWhen you considered what some people in the world had, life wasn't too bad

Vorbis lay on his side, his black-on-black eyes staring at nothing

Brutha tried to sleep

He had never dreamed Didactylos had been quite excited about that So and didn't dreaine a heart,[9] he said, that was nearly all memory, and had hardly any beats to spare for the everyday purposes of thinking That would explain why Brutha ht

So this couldn't have been a dream It must have been the sun

He heard Oh he was holding a conversation with people Brutha could not hear

Mine!

Go away!

No

Mine!

Both of them!

Mine!

Brutha turned his head

The tortoise was in a gap between two rocks, neck extended and weaving fronat-like whining, that came and wentand promises in his head

They flashed pastfaces talking to hireatness, h above the world, all this was his, he could do anything, all he had to do was believe, in e formed in front of hi surrounded by fruit, and aon the sides

Mine!

Brutha blinked The voices faded So did the food

He blinked again

There were strange after-ih his memory was, he could not remember what the voices had said or what the other pictures had been All that lingered was a memory of roast pork and cold beer

"That's because they don't knohat to offer you," said O Generally they start with visions of food and carnal gratification"

"They got as far as the food," said Brutha

"Good job I overcaht have achieved with a young man like yourself"

Brutha raised himself on his elbows

Vorbis had not h to hiets in, nothing gets out Never seen a mind so turned in on itself"

"Will they be back?"

"Oh, yes It's not as if they've got anything else to do"

"When they do," said Brutha, feeling lightheaded, "could you wait until they've shown ratification?"

"Very bad for you"

"Brother Nhumrod was very down on them But I think perhaps we should know our enemies, yes?"

Brutha's voice faded to a croak

"I could have done with the vision of the drink," he said, wearily

The shadoere long He looked around in a?"

"All day Persistent devils, too Thick as flies"

Brutha learned why at sunset

He ods Everywhere

"Well, well, well," said St Ungulant "We don't get very us?"

He addressed the air beside hi to keep his balance, because the cartwheel rocked dangerously every time he moved They'd left Vorbis seated on the desert twenty feet below, hugging his knees and staring at nothing

The wheel had been nailed flat on top of a slih for one person to lie unconed to lie uncomfortably He was so thin that even skeletons would say, "Isn't he thin?" He earing some sort of minimalist loin-cloth, insofar as it was possible to tell under the beard and hair

It had been quite hard to ignore St Ungulant, who had been capering up and down at the top of his pole shouting "Coo-ee!" and "Over here!" There was a slightly smaller pole a few feet aith an old-fashioned half-moon-cut?out-on-the-door privy on it Just because you were an anchorite, St Ungulant said, didn't

Brutha had heard of anchorites, ere a kind of one?way prophet They went out into the desert but did not co a hermit's life of dirt and hardship and dirt and holy contemplation and dirt Many of them liked towalled up in cells or living, quite appropriately, at the top of a pole The Oed theet madmen as far away as possible where they couldn't cause any trouble and could be cared for by the community, insofar as the community consisted of lions and buzzards and dirt