Compleat Traveller in Black by John Brunner

heavy he could barely lift his boots, and when he was gone Manuus fell to ceremonies of a kind that had not been performed in living memory, which strange phenomena attended. There was a storm on peaceful Lake Taxhling; in Barbizond three madmen ran screaming through the streets; on a hill near Acromel dust devils ceased their whirling. Last, but not least, certain persons in Ryovora itself saw visions of a disturbing nature, and hastened to the new-designated temple to place yet more offerings at the feet of Bernard Brown and to consult the already sizable record of his sayings.
    Studying them, they found no comfort.
     
    VII
     
    And thus the matter was to remain for another day. The margrave, making as was his custom the best of a bad job, called up an obliging spirit and had a pavilion erected in the Moth Garden to serve as a temporary surrogate for his palace; there he sat, swearing mightily, far into the night, while he pondered the information Manuus had divulged.
    Those other nobles of Ryovora who were best skilled in the art of magic met to discuss in low tones over their wine the riddle of how to distinguish divinity from humanity. They remained unswayed by both the clamor of the populace, led by Brim, and the scant evidence furnished by their interrogation of Bernard Brown. It seemed implausible, they allowed, that a person who claimed to know merely about matters as base as roads and bridges should be a god; nonetheless, one must respect the powers of Manuus, and perhaps in a mood to make a jest of Ryovora he could have conjured up an authentic deity and disguised him. … Did he not have the power to disguise himself, even from them?
    The common folk, likewise, found themselves impaled by a dilemma. However, they had been longing for a god of whatever sort for a considerable while; indisputably someone strange had come among them, preceded by complex indecipherable omens, and it was generally deemed advisable to act as though Bernard were a genuine god until some incontestable argument to the contrary should be advanced.
    So the night passed; and of those who spent it restlessly, not the least fervent seeker of repose was Bernard Brown, for all that his couch was a vast stack of gorgeous offerings in velvet and satin.
    Then came the dawn.
     
    It had been centuries since another city marched against Ryovora. The citizens had long ago deduced that their best protection was their reputation; who after all would dare attack that city where pre-eminently the populace enjoyed the gift to plan and reason? No general, for sure, who depended on ordinary and obedient soldiers, deprived by systematic training of imagination and initiative!
    Perennially cautious, though, in a world where even yet an army might be raised of elemental spirits, they financed the wages of a team of watchmen … and next day, as the sun was rising, the current incumbent of the watchman’s post en route to his customary breakfast cast a casual glance across the country separating Acromel from Ryovora.
    And saw with astonishment – not to mention disbelief – that a red idol a hundred feet high was striding with enormous yells towards him.
    Such an idol, the watchman realized, could be none other than the Quadruple God of Acromel.
    Around the monstrous crimson feet were fetters of riveted steel; before and behind, men went with blazing torches on long poles, prodding and driving it in a desired direction. Sometimes the thing’s yelling howled into a ridiculous falsetto when a torch made contact with its blood-colored limbs, and the drovers had to scatter and flee from the blows of eight gigantic fists. But they returned, and it became plain that they now well understood the reactions of the idol, and could drive it like a maddened bull because its rage made it unthinking.
    The watchman sounded an alarm, and panic spread through the streets of Ryovora like floodwaters through a burst levee. Men, women, even children, roused from sleep to dash