"Why are the beautiful ones not as holy as the ones that don't look like anything?"

"Ah," said Mother, "but you have to understand, they were once the most beautiful of all. But they have been worshipped most fervently, and they have given us good babies and good hunting. So of course they've been worn smooth. But we remember what they were."

The smooth lumpy ones disturbed her. "Couldn't somebody carve new faces on them?"

"Don't be absurd. That would be blasphemy." Mother looked annoyed. "Honestly, Emeez, I don't understand how your mind works. Nobody carves the gods. They would have no power if men and women just made them up out of clay."

"Well who does make them, then?"

"We bring them home," said Mother. "We find them and bring them home."

"But who makes them?"

"They make themselves," said Mother. "They rise up from the clay of the riverbank by themselves."

"Can I watch sometime?"

"No," said Mother.

"I want to watch a god coming forth."

Mother sighed. "I suppose you're old enough. If you promise you won't go telling the younger children."

"I promise."

"There is a certain time of year. In the dry season. The skymeat come down and shape the mud by the riverbank."

"Skymeat?" Emeez was appalled. "You can't be serious. That's disgusting."

"Of course it would be disgusting," said Mother, "if you thought the skymeat actually understood what they were doing. But they don't. The god comes awake inside them and they just start mindlessly shaping the clay in fantastic intricate patterns. Then, when they're done, they just go away. Leave them behind. For us."

The skymeat. Those nasty flying things that sometimes trapped and killed hunters. Their young were brought home and roasted and fed to pregnant women. They were dangerous, mindless beasts, treacherous and sneaky, and they made the gods?

"I'm not feeling well, Mother," said Emeez.

"Well, then, sit down here for a few minutes and rest," said Mother. "I'm supposed to meet the priestess three rooms up-that way-and I can't be late. But you can come after me and find me, right? You won't wander off the main path and get lost, will you?"

"I don't think I suddenly turned stupid, Mother."

"But you did suddenly turn rude. I don't like that in you, Emeez."

Well, nobody likes much of anything in me, she thought. But that doesn't mean I have to agree with them, I think I'm excellent company. I'm much smarter than any of my other friends, and so everything I say to myself is scintillating and exciting and has never been said before. Unlike those who say over and over, endlessly, the same bits of "wisdom" they picked up from their mothers. And I'm certainly better company than the boys, always throwing things and breaking things and cutting things. Much better to dig and to weave, the way women do, to gather things rather than kill them, to combine leaves and fruit and meat and roots together in a way that tastes good. I will be a fine woman, hairy or not, and whatever man ends up getting stuck with me will make a big show about how disappointed he is, but in secret he'll be glad, and I'll make him a whole bunch of smart hairy babies and they'll be just as ugly and just as smart and clever as I am until someday they wake up and realize that the hairy ones make the best wives and mothers and the hairless ones are just slimy and cold all the time, like skinned melons.

Angry now, Emeez got up and started looking closer at the gods. She couldn't help it-there was nothing interesting about the overworshipped gods. It was the pristine, intricate ones that fascinated her. Maybe that was her whole problem-she was attracted to gods with poor reputations, and that's why she was cursed with ugliness, because the really effective gods knew that she wouldn't like them. That was terrible, though, to punish her from birth for a sin she wouldn't even commit until she was six, only two years before she became a woman.

Well, as long as I've already been punished for it, I'm going to go right ahead and deserve the punishment. I'm going to find the very most beautiful, most unworshipped god of all and choose that one for my favorite.

So she began searching seriously for one that was in perfect condition. But of course all the gods had received at least some worship, so even though she could find sections of them that still had the most beautiful details, there was none that was unmarred.

Until she found the most astonishing one, in the back corner of a small side chamber. It looked like none of the others. In fact, it looked like no beast that she had ever seen before. And the carving was absolutely pristine. It had been smoothed nowhere, which meant that it had never been worshipped by anyone.

Well, she said to the ugly god. I am your worshipper now. And I will worship you the best way, not like any of the others. I won't lick you or rub you or whatever other disgusting thing they do with those other muddy gods. I'm going to worship you by looking at you and saying that you are a beautiful carving.

Of course, it was a beautiful carving of an astonishingly ugly creature. Or rather, just the head of the creature. It had a mouth like a person, and two eyes like a person, but the nose pointed downward and its jaw was amazingly pointed, and down at the base of the head it narrowed down until the neck was much, much thinner than the head. How does it hold up such a massive head on such a skinny heck? And why would a stupid skymeat even think of making something that no one had ever seen?

The answer to that last question was obvious enough, of course, when she thought of it. The skymeat carved this head because this was what the god looked like.

No. What god would choose to look like that?

Unless-and here was an astonishing thought- unless the gods couldn't help the way they looked. Unless this god was just like her and grew up ugly and yet he didn't think that meant he didn't have a right to have a statue and be worshipped, and so he got a skymeat to carve his head but then when it was brought down here not one soul ever worshipped him and he got stuck off in a dark corner, only now I've found you, and I may be ugly but I'm the only worshipper you've got so don't tell me you're going to reject me now!

She heard it as clear as if someone had spoken behind her. She turned around to look, but there was no one in this darkish room, no one but her.

"Did you speak to me?" she whispered.

There was no answer. But as she looked at the ugly beautiful statue, she suddenly knew something, knew something so important that she had to tell Mother at once. She ran from the room and up the main road until she reached the room where Mother and the priestess were conversing animatedly. "I see you feel better, Emeez," said Mother, patting her head.

"Mother, I have to tell you-"

"Later," said Mother. "We've just about decided something wonderful for you and-"

"Mother, I have to tell you now"

Mother looked embarrassed and annoyed. "Emeez, you're going to make Vleezheesumuunuun think that I haven't raised you well."

From the priestess's name, Emeez realized that she must be somebody very important and distinguished, and suddenly she was shy. "I'm sorry," she said.

"No, that's all right," the old priestess said. "It's the hairy ones who still hear the voice of the gods, they say."

Oh, great, thought Emeez. Don't tell me that because I'm ugly I might have to end up as a priestess.

"What was it you wanted to tell us, child?" asked the priestess.

"I just-I was looking at a really beautiful god, only it was really ugly, and suddenly I knew something. That's all."

The priestess went down on all fours. Immediately Mother did, too, and Emeez was well-bred enough to know that she must also assume that posture. It was exhilarating, though, because it meant that the priestess was taking her seriously. "What did you suddenly know?" asked Vleezheesumuunuun.