And yet, as he looked, it seemed, perhaps, that the horizon fell off to his left and right. It didn’t matter which direction he looked, the effect was the same. Perhaps, maybe, hard to say. But it looked like it curved away. Or is that just me seeing what I want to see? Afsan thought. Last night, he’d convinced himself of something new: that the world was round. Now he was even claiming that he could see the roundness.

And yet. And yet. The effect was persistent. No matter how hard he tried to force his eyes not to see the gentle sloping, it was always visible, always there just at the edge of certainty.

Overhead, though, was the most glorious sight of all. In the time it had taken Afsan to climb the mast, the Face of God had gone from almost half lit to a fat crescent, a vast sickle of orange and yellow and brown arcing across a fourth of the sky.

Afsan tilted his head back, his tail bowing under the shift in weight, and looked straight up. What are you? he wondered.

Are you God?

The Prophet Larsk had certainly thought so. When he’d been a child, Afsan, like all his age, had memorized Larsk’s original proclamations, the speeches the prophet had made in the central square of what is now Capital City. "I have gazed upon the Face of God," Larsk had said. "I have seen the very countenance of our creator…"

But the Face of God did not look like a Quintaglio face. It was orange and yellow and brown, not green; it was round, not drawn-out; it had many eyes, not just two; its mouth had no teeth — if that great spot, oval and white, sometimes visible on the Face was indeed the mouth.

And yet, why should God look like a Quintaglio? God is perfection; a Quintaglio is not. God is immortal, requiring no food, no air. Quintaglios have muzzles lined with teeth and terminated with nostrils precisely because they are not immortal, because they need material sustenance to live. And Afsan knew that two eyes were better than one, for with two came depth perception. Surely the ten or so that wandered across the Face were that much better than just two?

Even as the crescent waned, Afsan found himself spellbound by the play of colors across it.

But no! No. It is not the Face of God. It cannot be. Afsan’s tail muscles twitched in frustration, there being too little room in the lookout’s bucket for a proper slap.

He’d worked it all out. He knew.

The Face of God is a planet.

A planet.

Nothing more.

But if that is true, where is God? What is God?

There is no God.

Afsan flinched. His pulse quickened; his claws jumped from their sheaths. The idea frightened him.

There is no God.

Could that be so? No, no, no, of course not. Madness to even think such a thing. There must be a God. There must be!

But where? If not here, where? If not the swirling object above his head, where? If not looking down upon the pilgrims from high above, where?

Where?

Afsan’s stomach knotted, and he knew it wasn’t just from the constant swaying of the bucket.

Quintaglios exist, he thought.

And if we exist, then someone made us.

And that someone must be God.

Well, that was simple enough. All right, then. God existed.

But who created God?

The mast moved to and fro. A stiff breeze played over Afsan’s features.

God just postpones the inevitable. If everything requires a creator, then God requires one, too.

He thought briefly of a children’s astrology class he’d taken kilodays ago. His teacher had been trying to explain the rudiments of the universe — Land being a huge island floating down the endless River. But one of the other youngsters — a visitor from a Pack that normally roamed farther north in Arj’toolar province — had said no. The way she’d heard it, Land balanced on an armorback, the sturdy four-footed animal holding everything up on its thick bony carapace.

"Ah!" the instructor had said. "But what does the armorback rest upon?"

The girl had replied immediately. "Why, another armorback, of course."

The instructor’s tail had swished with delight. "And what does that armorback rest upon?"

"A third armorback," said the girl.

"And that armorback?"

"A fourth."

"And that armorback?"

But here the girl had held up her hand. "I see where you’re trying to go with this, teacher, but you can’t fool me. It’s armorbacks all the way down."

Back then, Afsan had clicked his teeth quietly in amusement. But it wasn’t funny now. Was God just like that girl’s armorbacks? A way of postponing the final question? A way of endlessly putting off dealing with — with — with first causes! And Afsan, smug back then in his superior knowledge, was guilty of the same self-delusion, the same acceptance of easy answers. Either God was created by something else, and that something else was created by yet some greater something, and on and on to infinity, or it was possible to exist without a creator. Well, the former case was patently ridiculous. And if the latter case was true, then, well, then there was no need for a God.

No need for a God.

But what of all he had been taught? What of the great religion of the people? The mast swayed.

Afsan felt his faith crumbling around him, shattering like an egg. And what would burst forth from the shell shards?

What was Afsan about to unleash on the world?

For a few heartbeats he tried to convince himself that this knowledge was a wonderful thing, a great liberator. For did one not live in fear of God? Did one not comport oneself so as to gain favorable standing in the afterlife, such standing decided at the sole discretion of the supreme being?

But then it hit Afsan with an unexpected forcefulness.

He was afraid.

If there was no God, there was just as likely no afterlife. There was no reason to behave properly, to put the interests of others ahead of one’s own.

No God meant no meaning to it all, no higher standard by which everything was measured. No absolutes of goodness.

Below him, Afsan heard faint sounds. He looked down upon the twin diamond decks of the Dasheter, far below. Standing at one side was the ship’s priest, Det-Bleen, moving his arms in graceful orchestration. The pilgrims were arranging themselves in a circle, each one facing out. Their tails all aimed in toward a central point directly beneath the Face of God. They tipped their heads back, looking straight up. And they sang.

Songs of hope.

Songs of prayer.

Songs of worship.

The music, when audible above the wind and the slapping of waves, was beautiful, full of energy, of sincerity. Clearer and brighter than the other voices, Afsan could hear the magic of Prince Dybo’s singing.

They’re together, thought Afsan, united in worship. For it was only through the church, through the religion, that Quintaglios saw fit to join forces for anything beyond the hunt.

The sacred scrolls said that in heaven there was no territorial instinct; that there, in the calming presence of God Herself, being in the company of others did not bring out the animal within. The church taught that one must work together, hold one’s instincts in check, that to do so was to bring oneself closer to God, to prepare oneself for the unending bliss of the afterlife.

Without a church, there would be no such teachings. Without such teachings, there would be no working together, except, maybe, to fell the largest of beasts, the greatest of prey. Without working together, there’d be no cities, no culture.

Anarchy.

In one heady moment, Afsan realized that the church was the cornerstone of the culture, that the role of Det-Yenalb was more important than that played by Saleed or any scholar, that the cement that bound together a race of carnivores, a breed that had territorial imperatives fundamental to their being, was the belief in God.