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"And I can't get it to go backward," he said

"Don't worry," said Sio backward What about armor?"

Urn waved a distracted hand around his workshop

"This is a village forge!" he said "This thing is twenty feet long! Zacharos can'ttheht"

Simony looked at the skeleton of the steam car and the pile of plates stacked beside it

"Ever been in a battle, Urn?" he said

"No I've got flat feet And I'"

"Do you knohat a tortoise is?"

Urn scratched his head "Okay The answer isn't a little reptile in a shell, is it? Because you know I know that"

"Ia fortress or a wall, and the eneot on you, every man holds his shield overhead so that itkind ofslots into all the shields around it Can take a lot of weight"

"Overlapping," murmured Urn

"Like scales," said Simony

Urn looked reflectively at the cart

"A tortoise," he said

"And the battering-ram?" said Simony

"Oh, that's no probleiron rammer They're only bronze doors, you say?"

"Yes But very big"

"Then they're probably hollow Or cast bronze plates on wood That's what I'd do"

"Not solid bronze? Everyone says they're solid bronze"

"That's what I'd say, too"

"Excuse me, sirs"

A burly uards

"This is Sergeant Fergeant?"

"The doors is reinforced with Klatchian steel Because of all the fighting in the ti And they opens outwards only Like lock gates on a canal, you understand? If you push on 'eether"

"How are they opened, then?" said Urn

"The Cenobiarch raises his hand and the breath of God blows theical sense, I oes behind a curtain and pulls a lever Butwhen I was on guard down in the crypts, soswell, you could hear water gushing"

"Hydraulics," said Urn "Thought it would be hydraulics"

"Can you get in?" said Simony

"To the room? Why not? No one bothers with it"

"Could he make the doors open?" said Si his chin reflectively with a hammer He seemed to be lost in a world of his own

"I said, could Fergmen make these hydra haulics work?"

"Huely

"Could you?"

"What?"

"Could you make them work?"

"Oh Probably It's just pipes and pressures, after all Uhtfully at the stea that he should go away, and then tried the et to whatever world Urn was in

He tried looking at the cart, too

"How soon can you have it all finished?"

"Hht If ork through tonight"

"But we'll need it for the next dawn! We won't have time to see if it works!"

"It'll work first time," said Urn

"Really?"

"I built it I know about it You know about swords and spears and things I know about things that go round and round It ork first tiot to do-

"Right"

Urn was left alone in the barn He looked reflectively at his hammer, and then at the iron cart

They didn't kno to cast bronze properly here Their iron was pathetic, just pathetic Their copper? It was terrible They seemed to be able to make steel that shattered at a blow Over the years the Quisition had weeded out all the good smiths

He'd done the best he could, but

"Just don't ask me about the second or third time," he said quietly to hiarden, papers strewn around hiure did not look up Two guards stood over it, with draords

"The Turtle peoplethe people are plotting so," it said, the voice shrill with terror

"Of course they are Of course they are," said Vorbis "And what is this plot?"

"There is some kind ofwhen you are confirmed as Cenobiarchsooes by itselfit will smash down the doors of the Temple"

The voice faded away

"And where is this device now?" said Vorbis