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 wasn't just a small god. This was a small god who hadn't 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.
That's 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 Brutha's head, which he butted.
“Wst?”
“Just checking you're 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 wasn't 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.