A HUNDRED YEARS CAN PASS LIKE INFINITY.
The black-on-black eyes stared imploringly at Brutha, who reached out automatically, without thinking . . . and then hesitated.
HE WAS A MURDERER, said Death. AND A CREATOR OF MURDERERS. A TORTURER. WITHOUT PASSION. CRUEL. CALLOUS. COMPASSIONLESS.
“Yes. I know. He's Vorbis,” said Brutha. Vorbis changed people. Sometimes he changed them into dead people. But he always changed them. That was his triumph.
He sighed.
“But I'm me,” he said.
Vorbis stood up, uncertainly, and followed Brutha across the desert.
Death watched them walk away.
o;And what are you going to do?” said Simony.
“I've got to copy out the Library,” said Brutha.
“But you can't read and write,” said Didactylos.
“No. But I can see and draw. Two copies. One to keep here.”
“Plenty of room when we burn the Septateuch,” said Simony.
“No burning of anything. You have to take a step at a time,” said Brutha. He looked out at the shimmering line of the desert. Funny. He'd been as happy as he'd ever been in the desert.
“And then . . .” he began.
“Yes?”
Brutha lowered his eyes, to the farmlands and villages around the Citadel. He sighed.
“And then we'd better get on with things,” he said. “Every day.”
Fasta Benj rowed home, in a thoughtful frame of mind.
It had been a very good few days. He'd met a lot of new people and sold quite a lot of fish. P'Tang-P'Tang, with his lesser servants, had talked personally to him, making him promise not to wage war on some place he'd never heard of. He'd agreed.[10]
Some of the new people had shown him this amazing way of making lightning. You hit this rock with this piece of hard stuff and you got little bits of lightning which dropped on to dry stuff which got red and hot like the sun. If you put more wood on it got bigger and if you put a fish on it got black but if you were quick it didn't get black but got brown and tasted better than anything he'd ever tasted, although this was not difficult. And he'd been given some knives not made out of rock and cloth not made out of reeds and, all in all, life was looking up for Fasta Benj and his people.
He wasn't sure why lots of people would want to hit Pacha Moj's uncle with a big rock, but it definitely escalated the pace of technological progress.
No one, not even Brutha, noticed that old Lu-Tze wasn't around any more. Not being noticed, either as being present or absent, is part of a history monk's stock in trade.
In fact he'd packed his broom and his bonsai mountains and had gone by secret tunnels and devious means to the hidden valley in the central peaks, where the abbot was waiting for him. The abbot was playing chess in the long gallery that overlooked the valley. Fountains bubbled in the gardens, and swallows flew in and out of the windows.
“All went well?” said the abbot, without looking up.
“Very well, lord,” said Lu-Tze. “I had to nudge things a little, though.”
“I wish you wouldn't do that sort of thing,” said the abbot, fingering a pawn. “You'll overstep the mark one day.”
“It's the history we've got these days,” said Lu-Tze. "Very shoddy stuff, lord. I have to patch it up all the time-
"Yes, Yes-
“We used to get much better history in the old days.”