Small Gods

scattered bones. Among them, half-hidden by debris, was a sword. It was old, and not well-made, and scoured by sand. He picked it up gingerly by the blade.
    “Other end,” said Om.
    “I know!”
    “Can you use one?”
    “I don’t know!”
    “I really hope you’re a fast learner.”
    The lion emerged, slowly.
    Desert lions, it has been said, are not like the lions of the veldt. They had been, when the great desert had been verdant woodland. * Then there had been time to lie around for most of the day, looking majestic, in between regular meals of goat. ** But the woodland had become scrubland, the scrubland had become, well, poorer scrubland, and the goats and the people and, eventually, even the cities, went away.
    The lions stayed. There’s always something to eat, if you’re hungry enough. People still had to cross the desert. There were lizards. There were snakes. It wasn’t much of an ecological niche, but the lions were hanging on to it like grim death, which was what happened to most people who met a desert lion.
    Someone had already met this one.
    Its mane was matted. Ancient scars criss-crossed its pelt. It dragged itself towards Brutha, back legs trailing uselessly.
    “It’s hurt,” said Brutha.
    “Oh, good. And there’s plenty of eating on one of those,” said Om. “A bit stringy, but—”
    The lion collapsed, its toast-rack chest heaving. A spear was protruding from its flank. Flies, which can always find something to eat in any desert, flew up in a swarm.
    Brutha put down the sword. Om stuck his head in his shell.
    “Oh no,” he murmured. “Twenty million people in this world, and the only one who believes in me is a suicide—”
    “We can’t just leave it,” said Brutha.
    “We can . We can . It’s a lion . You leave lions alone .”
    Brutha knelt down. The lion opened one crusted yellow eye, too weak even to bite him.
    “You’re going to die, you’re going to die . I’m not going to find anyone to believe in me out here—”
    Brutha’s knowledge of animal anatomy was rudimentary. Although some of the inquisitors had an enviable knowledge of the insides of the human body that is denied to all those who are not allowed to open it while it’s still working, medicine as such was frowned upon in Omnia. But somewhere, in every village, was someone who officially didn’t set bones and who didn’t know a few things about certain plants, and who stayed out of reach of the Quisition because of the fragile gratitude of their patients. And every peasant picked up a smattering of knowledge. Acute toothache can burn through all but the strongest in faith.
    Brutha grasped the spear-haft. The lion growled as he moved it.
    “Can’t you speak to it?” said Brutha.
    “It’s an animal .”
    “So are you. You could try to calm it down. Because if it gets excited—”
    Om snapped into concentration.
    In fact the lion’s mind contained nothing but pain, a spreading nebula of the stuff, overcoming even the normal background hunger. Om tried to encircle the pain, make it flow away…and not to think about what would happen if it went. By the feel of things, the lion had not eaten for days.
    The lion grunted as Brutha withdrew the spearhead.
    “Omnian,” he said. “It hasn’t been there long. It must have met the soldiers when they were on the way to Ephebe. They must have passed close by.” He tore another strip from his robe, and tried to clean the wound.
    “We want to eat it, not cure it!” shouted Om. “What’re you thinking of? You think it’s going to be grateful?”
    “It wanted to be helped.”
    “And soon it will want to be fed, have you thought about that?”
    “It’s looking pathetically at me.”
    “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.