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“Its not even a very big snake,” said Brutha.
“And then while youre writhing there in indescrib?able agony, you imagine all the things you would have done to that damn snake if youd got to it first,” said Om. “Well, your wish has been granted. Dont give any to Vorbis,” he added.
“Hes running a bad fever. He keeps muttering. ”
“Do you really think youll get him back to the Cit?adel and theyll believe you?” said Om.
“Brother Nhumrod always said I was very truth?ful,” said Brutha. He smashed the rock on the cave wall to create a crude cutting edge, and gingerly started dismembering the snake. “Anyway, there isnt anything else I can do. I couldnt just leave him. ”
“Yes you could,” said Om.
“To die in the desert?”
“Yes. Its easy. Much easier than not leaving him to die in the desert. ”
No.
“This is how they do things in Ethics, is it?” said Om sarcastically.
“I dont know. Its how Im doing it. ”
The Unnamed Boat bobbed in a gully between the rocks. There was a low cliff beyond the beach. Simony climbed back down it, to where the philosophers were huddling out of the wind.
“I know this area,” he said. “Were a few miles from the village where a friend lives. All we have to do is wait till nightfall. ”
“Whyre you doing all this?” said Urn. “I mean, whats the point?”
“Have you ever heard of a country called Istanzia?” said Simony. “It wasnt very big. It had nothing anyone wanted. It was just a place for people to live. ”
“Omnia conquered it fifteen years ago,” said Didactylos.
“Thats right. My country,” said Simony. “I was just a kid then. But I wont forget. Nor will others. Theres lots of people with a reason to hate the Church. ”
“I saw you standing close to Vorbis,” said Urn. “I thought you were protecting him. ”
“Oh, I was, I was,” said Simony. “I dont want anyone to kill him before I do. ”
Didactylos wrapped his toga around himself and shivered.
The sun was riveted to the copper dome of the sky. Brutha dozed in the cave. In his own corner, Vorbis tossed and turned.
Om sat waiting in the cave mouth.
Waited expectantly.
Waited in dread.
And they came.
They came out from under scraps of stone, and from cracks in the rock. They fountained up from the sand, they distilled out of the wavering sky. The air was fiIled with their voices, as faint as the whispering of gnats.
Om tensed.
The language he spoke was not like the language of the high gods. It was hardly language at all. It was a mere modulation of desires and hungers, without nouns and with only a few verbs .
. . . Want . . .
Om replied, mine.
There were thousands of them. He was stronger, yes, he had a believer, but they fiIled the sky like locusts. The longing poured down on him with the weight of hot lead. The only advantage, the only advantage, was that the small gods had no concept of working together. That was a luxury that came with evolution .
. . . Want . . .
Mine!
The chittering became a whine.
But you can have the other one, said Om .
. . . Dull, hard, enclosed, shut-in . . .
I know, said Om. But this one, mine!
The psychic shout echoed around the desert. The small gods fled.
Except for one.
Om was aware that it had not been swarming with the others, but had been hovering gently over a piece of sun-?bleached bone. It had said nothing.
He turned his attention on it.
You. Mine!
I know, said the small god. It knew speech, real god speech, although it talked as though every word had been winched from the pit of memory.
Who are you? said Om.
The small god stirred.
There was a city once, said the small god. Not just a city. An empire of cities. I, I, I remember there were canals, and gardens. There was a lake. They had floating gardens on the lake, I recall. I, I. And there were temples. Such temples as you may dream of. Great pyramid temples that reached to the sky. Thousands were sacrificed. To the greater glory.
Om felt sick. This wasnt just a small god. This was a small god who hadnt always been small . . .
Who were you?
And there were temples. I, I, me. Such temples as you may dream of. Great pyramid temples that reached to the sky. The glory of. Thousands were sacrificed. Me. To the greater glory.
And there were temples. Me, me, me. Greater glory. Such glory temples as you may dream of. Great pyramid dream temples that reached to the sky. Me, me. Sacrificed. Dream. Thousands were sacrificed. To me the greater sky glory-
You were their God? Om managed.
Thousands were sacrificed. To the greater glory.
Can you hear me?
Thousands sacrificed greater glory. Me, me, me.
What was your name? shouted Om.
Name?
A hot wind blew over the desert, shifting a few grains of sand. The echo of a lost god blew away, tumbling over and over, until it vanished among the rocks.
Who were you?
There was no answer.
Thats what happens, Om thought. Being a small god was bad, except at the time you hardly knew that it was bad because you only barely knew anything at all, but all the time there was something which was just possibly the germ of hope, the knowledge and belief that one day you might be more than you were now.
But how much worse to have been a god, and to now be no more than a smoky bundle of memories, blown back and forth across the sand made from the crumbled stones of your temples . . .
Om turned around and, on stumpy legs, walked purposefully back into the cave until he came to Bruthas head, which he butted.
“Wst?”
“Just checking youre still alive. ”
“Fgfl. ”
“Right. ”
Om staggered back to his guard position at the mouth of the cave.
There were said to be oases in the desert, but they were never in the same place twice. The desert wasnt mappable. It ate map-makers.
So did the lions. Om could remember them. Scrawny things, not like the lions of the Howondaland veldt. More wolf than lion, more hyena than either. Not brave, but with a kind of vicious, rangy cowardice that was much more dangerous . . .
Lions.
Oh, dear . . .
He had to find lions.
Lions drank.
Brutha awoke as the afternoon light dragged across the desert. His mouth tasted of snake.
Om was butting him on the foot.
“Come on, come on, youre missing the best of the day. ”
“Is there any water?” Brutha murmured thickly.
“There will be. Only five miles off. Amazing luck. ”
Brutha pulled himself up. Every muscle ached.
“How do you know?”
“I can sense it. I am a god, you know. ”
“You said you could only sense minds. ”
Om cursed. Brutha didnt forget things.
“Its more complicated than that,” lied Om. “Trust me. Come on, while theres some twilight. And dont forget Mister Vorbis. ”
Vorbis was curled up. He looked at Brutha with unfocused eyes, stood up like a man still asleep when Brutha helped him.
“I think he might have been poisoned,” said Brutha. “Theres sea creatures with stings. And poi?sonous corals. He keeps moving his lips, but I cant make out what hes trying to say. ”
“Bring him along,” said Om. “Bring him along. Oh, yes. ”
“You wanted me to abandon him last night,” said Brutha.
“Did I?” said Om, his very shell radiating inno?cence. “Well, maybe Ive been to Ethics. Had a change of heart. I can see hes with us for
a purpose now. Good old Vorbis. Bring him along. ”
Simony and the two philosophers stood on the cliff?top, looking across the parched farmlands of Omnia to the distant rock of the Citadel. Two of them look?ing, anyway.
“Give me a lever and a place to stand, and Id smash that place like an egg,” said Simony, leading Didactylos down the narrow path.
“Looks big,” said Urn.
“See the gleam? Those are the doors. ”
“Look massive. ”
“I was wondering,” said Simony, “about the boat. The way it moved. Something like that could smash the doors, right?”
“Youd have to flood the valley,” said Urn.
“I mean if it was on wheels. ”
“Hah, yes,” said Urn, sarcastically. It had been a long day. "Yes, if I had a forge and half a dozen black?smiths and a lot of help. Wheels? No problem. But--
“We shall have to see,” said Simony, “what we can do. ”
The sun was on the horizon when Brutha, his arm around Vorbiss shoulders, reached the next rock is?land. It was bigger than the one with the snake. The wind had carved the stones into gaunt, unlikely shapes, like fingers. There were even plants lodging in crevices in the rock.
“Theres water somewhere,” said Brutha.
“Theres always water, even in the worst deserts,” said Om. “One, oh, maybe two inches of rain a year. ”
“I can smell something,” said Brutha, as his feet stopped treading on sand and crunched up the lime?stone scree around the boulders. “Something rank. ”
“Hold me over your head. ”
Om scanned the rocks.
“Right. Now bring me down again. And head for that rock that looks like . . . that looks very unex?pected, really. ”
Brutha stared. “It does, too,” he croaked, eventu?ally. “Amazing to think it was carved by the wind. ”
“The wind god has a sense of humor,” said Om. “Although its pretty basic. ”
Near the foot of the rock huge slabs had fallen over the years, forming a jagged pile with, here and there, shadowy openings.
"That smell- Brutha began.
“Probably animals come to drink the water,” said Om.
Bruthas foot kicked against something yellowwhite, which bounced away among the rocks making a noise like a sackful of coconuts. In the stifling empty silence of the desert, it echoed loudly.
“What was that?”
“Definitely not a skull,” lied Om. "Dont worry . . .
“Theres bones everywhere!”
“Well? What did you expect? This is a desert! People die here! Its a very popular occupation in this vicinity!”
Brutha picked up a bone. He was, as he well knew, stupid. But people didnt gnaw their own bones after they died.
"Om-
“Theres water here!” shouted Om. “We need it! But-theres probably one or two drawbacks!”
“What kind of drawbacks?”
“As in natural hazards!”
“Like-?”
“Well, you know lions?” said Om desperately.
“Theres lions here?”
“Well . . . slightly. ”
“Slightly lions?”
“Only one lion. ”
"Only one-
"-generally a solitary creature. Most to be feared are the old males, who are forced into the most inhospitable regions by their younger rivals. They are eviltempered and cunning and in their extremity have lost all fear of man-
The memory faded, letting go of Bruthas vocal chords.
“That kind?” Brutha finished.
“It wont take any notice of us once its fed,” said Om.