Old Ur-Gilash? Perhaps he was hanging on as a lizard somewhere, with some old hermit as his only believer. More likely he had been blown out into the desert. A small god was lucky to get one chance.
There was something wrong. Om couldn't quite put his finger on it, and not only because he didn't have a finger. Gods rose and fell like bits of onion in a boiling soup, but this time was different. There was something wrong this time . . .
hen Om was shaken free.
Something white swept down toward him as he seesawed over the edge, and he bit it.
Brutha yelled and pulled his hand up, with Om trailing on the end of it.
“You didn't have to bite!”
The ship pitched into a wave and flung him to the deck. Om let go and rolled away.
When Brutha got to his feet, or at least to his hands and knees, he saw the crewmen standing around him. Two of them grabbed him by the elbows as a wave crashed over the ship.
“What are you doing?”
They were trying to avoid looking at his face. They dragged him toward the rail.
Somewhere in the scuppers Om screamed at the Sea Queen.
“It's the rules! The rules!”
Four sailors had got hold of Brutha now. Om could hear, above the roaring of the storm, the silence of the desert.
“Wait,” said Brutha.
“It's nothing personal,” said one of the sailors. “We don't want to do this.”
“I don't want you to do it either,” said Brutha.“Is that any help?”
“The sea wants a life,” said the oldest sailor. "Yours is nearest. Okay, get his-
“Can I make my peace with my God?”
“What?”
“If you're going to kill me, can I pray to my God first?”
“It's not us that's killing you,” said the sailor. “It's the sea.”
“ `The hand that does the deed is guilty of the crime,' ” said Brutha. “Ossory, chapter LVI, verse 93.”
The sailors looked at one another. At a time like this, it was probably not wise to antagonize any god. The ship skidded down the side of a wave.
“You've got ten seconds,” said the oldest sailor. “That's ten seconds more than many men get.”
Brutha lay down on the deck, helped considerably by another wave that slammed into the timbers.
Om was dimly aware of the prayer, to his surprise. He couldn't make out the words, but the prayer itself was an itch at the back of his mind.
“Don't ask me,” he said, trying to get upright, "I'm out of options-
The ship smacked down . . .
. . . on to a calm sea.
The storm still raged, but only around a widening circle with the ship in the middle. The lightning, stabbing at the sea, surrounded them like the bars of a cage.