“I don't understand that,” said Om. “They don't really believe I exist, but they go and put something like that on a grave.”
“It's hard to explain. I think it's because they believe they exist,” said Brutha. “It's because they're people, and so was he.”
He pulled the sword out of the sand.
“What do you want that for?”
“Might be useful.”
“Against who?”
“Might be useful.”
An hour later the lion, who was limping after Brutha, also arrived at the grave. It had lived in the desert for sixteen years, and the reason it had lived so long was that it had not died, and it had not died because it never wasted handy protein. It dug.
Humans have always wasted handy protein ever since they started wondering who had lived in it.
But, on the whole, there are worse places to be buried than inside a lion.
There were snakes and lizards on the rock islands. They were probably very nourishing and every one was, in its own way, a taste explosion.
There was no more water.
But there were plants . . . more or less. They looked like groups of stones, except where a few had put up a central flower spike that was a brilliant pink and purple in the dawn light.
“Where do they get the water from?”
“Fossil seas.”
“Water that's turned to stone?”
"No. Water that sank down thousands of years ago.
Right down in the bedrock."
“Can you dig down to it?”
“Don't be stupid.”
Brutha glanced from the flower to the nearest rock island.
“Honey,” he said.
“What?”
The bees had a nest high on the side of a spire of rock. The buzzing could be heard from ground level. There was no possible way up.
“Nice try,” said Om.
The sun was up. Already the rocks were warm to the touch. “Get some rest,” said Om, kindly. “I'll keep watch.”
“Watch for what?”
“I'll watch and find out.”
Brutha led Vorbis into the shade of a large boulder, and gently pushed him down. Then he lay down too.
The thirst wasn't too bad yet. He'd drunk from the temple pool until he squelched as he walked. Later on, they might find a snake . . . When you considered what some people in the world had, life wasn't too bad.