“Did I?” said Om, his very shell radiating inno?cence. “Well, maybe I've been to Ethics. Had a change of heart. I can see he's 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 I'd 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?”
“You'd 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 Vorbis's 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.
“There's water somewhere,” said Brutha.
“There's 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 it's 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.
Brutha's 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. "Don't worry . . .
“There's bones everywhere!”
“Well? What did you expect? This is a desert! People die here! It's a very popular occupation in this vicinity!”
Brutha picked up a bone. He was, as he well knew, stupid. But people didn't gnaw their own bones after they died.
"Om-