“Probably never seen a week's meals all walking around on one pair of legs before.”
That wasn't true, Om reflected. Brutha was shedding weight like an ice-cube, out here in the desert. That kept him alive! The boy was a two-legged camel.
Brutha crunched towards the rock pile, shards and bones shifting under his feet. The boulders formed a maze of half?-open tunnels and caves. By the smell, the lion had lived there for a long time, and had quite often been ill.
He stared at the nearest cave for some time.
“What's so fascinating about a lion's den?” said Om.
“The way it's got steps down into it, I think,” said Brutha.
Didactylos could feel the crowd. It filled the barn.
“How many are there?” he said.
“Hundreds!” said Urn. “They're even sitting on the rafters! And . . . master?”
“Yes?”
“There's even one or two priests! And dozens of soldiers!”
“Don't worry,” said Simony, joining them on the makeshift platform made of fig barrels. “They are Turtle believers, just like you. We have friends in unexpected places!”
“But I don't-” Didactylos began, helplessly.
“There isn't anyone here who doesn't hate the Church with all their soul,” said Simony.
"But that's not-
“They're just waiting for someone to lead them!”
"But I never-
"I know you won't let us down. You're a man of reason. Urn, come over here. There's a blacksmith I want you to meet-
Didactylos turned his face to the crowd. He could feel the hot, hushed silence of their stares.
Each drop took minutes.
It was hypnotic. Brutha found himself staring at each developing drip. It was almost impossible to see it grow, but they had been growing and dripping for thousands of years.
“How?” said Om.
“Water seeps down after the rains,” said Brutha. “It lodges in the rocks. Don't gods know these things?”
“We don't need to.” Om looked around. “Let's go. I hate this place.”
“It's just an old temple. There's nothing here.”
“That's what I mean.”
Sand and rubble half-filled it. Light lanced in through the broken roof high above, on to the slope that they had climbed down. Brutha wondered how many of the wind?carved rocks in the desert had once been buildings. This one must have been huge, perhaps a mighty tower. And then the desert had come.
There were no whispering voices here. Even the small gods kept away from abandoned temples, fo the same reason that people kept away from graveyards. The only sound was the occasional plink of the water.
It dripped into a- shallow pool in front of what looked like an altar. From the pool it had worn a groove in the slabs of the floor all the way to a round pit, which appeared to be bottomless. There were a few statues, all of them toppled; they were heavy-proportioned, lacking any kind of detail, each one a child's clay model chiseled in granite. The distant walls had once been covered with some kind of bas-relief, but it had crumbled away except in a few places, which showed strange designs that mainly consisted of tentacles.
“Who were the people who lived here?” said Brutha.