“Not now. Come help me with the bolts.”
A small wicket gate was set into the main gate. Brutha, his mind numb with hatred, shoved the bolts aside with the heel of his hand. The door opened with barely a creak.
Outside there was the occasional light of a distant farm, and crowding darkness.
Then the darkness poured in.
Hierarchy, Vorbis said later. The Ephebians didn't think in terms of hierarchies.
No army could cross the desert. But maybe a small army could get a quarter of the way, and leave a cache of water. And do that several times. And another small army could use part of that cache to go further, maybe reach halfway, and leave a cache. And another small army . . .
It had taken months. A third of the men had died, of heat and dehydration and wild animals and worse things, the worse things that the desert held . . .
You had to have a mind like Vorbis's to plan it.
And plan it early. Men were already dying in the desert before Brother Murduck went to preach; there was already a beaten track when the Omnian fleet burned in the bay before Ephebe.
You had to have a mind like Vorbis's to plan your retaliation before your attack.
It was over in less than an hour. The fundamental truth was that the handful of Ephebian guards in the palace had no chance at all.
Vorbis sat upright in the Tyrant's chair. It was ap?proaching midnight.
A collection of Ephebian citizens, the Tyrant among them, had been herded in front of him.
He busied himself with some paperwork and then looked up with an air of mild surprise, as if he'd been completely unaware that fifty people were waiting in front of him at crossbow point.
“Ah,” he said, and flashed a little smile.
“Well,” he said, “I am pleased to say that we can now dispense with the peace treaty. Quite unneces?sary. Why prattle of peace when there is no more war? Ephebe is now a diocese of Omnia. There will be no argument.”
He threw a paper on to the floor.
“There will be a fleet here in a few days. There will be no opposition, while we hold the palace. Your in?fernal mirror is even now being smashed.”
He steepled his fingers and looked at the assembled Ephebians.
“Who built it?”
The Tyrant looked up.
“It was an Ephebian construction,” he said.
“Ah,” said Vorbis, “democracy. I forgot. Then who”-he signaled one of the guards, who handed him a sack-“wrote this?”
A copy of De Chelonian Mobile was flung on to the marble floor.
Brutha stood beside the throne. It was where he had been told to stand.
He'd looked into the pit and now it was him. Every?thing around him was happening in some distant cir?cle of light, surrounded by darkness. Thoughts chased one another round his head.
Did the Cenobiarch know about this? Did anyone else know about the two kinds of truth? Who else knew that Vorbis was fighting both sides of a war, like a child playing with soldiers? Was it really wrong if it was for the greater glory of . . .
. . . a god who was a tortoise. A god that only Brutha believed in?
Who did Vorbis talk to when he prayed?
Through the mental storm Brutha heard Vorbis's level tones: “If the philosopher who wrote this does not own up, the entirety of you will be put to the flame. Do not doubt that I mean it.”