“What’s that, Dad?” Ritt pointed to a tall, sunken cone protruding from the ground at an angle.

The hot sun over the dusty scrubland burned Tok’s back. He did wish his sister would stop asking these idle questions about the meaningless features of the landscape.

“It’s a phallic symbol. One of the more primitive monuments built by the ancients. Before the cult of their three gods became common, the ancients worshipped symbols of fertility.” 

Tok wiped his nose on his wrist. The cone was about five times his father’s height and had a corroded vertical cross on the top. It didn’t look like any phallus he’d ever seen. 

“What’s the cult of the three gods?” Ritt scratched with her toe in the dirt.

“It’s the religion the ancient people believed in at the height of their civilisation, just before they made the people of the earth out of the dirt and water and air. They built many monuments to honour the three gods. We do not know what all of the ancients’ buildings were used for, but almost every single building that they built had a shrine to the gods in it.”

Tok urinated into a bush before following his father and sister.

Ritt tugged on her father’s arm. “What did the shrines look like?” 

Their father shaded his eyes against the sun’s glare. “Come to think of it, there is a shrine near here. Perhaps we can stop and have a look at it.”

“Oh, Dad!” Tok protested. “I thought we were going hunting!”

“It won’t take long, Tok.”

Tok lagged behind as his father led them to the place where the shrine was, still talking to Ritt. “We think each of their gods represented something of the earth. The greatest god must have represented the earth itself. The next god represented the air that we breathe, and the ancients breathed when they lived. The smallest god represented the water we drink.”

Soon they came upon a pit that had been scraped in the ground. “You see the doorway down there?” Their father pointed into the hole. Tok could see a rectangular gap. “That’s the entrance to the shrine to the gods. Originally it would have been built on the surface, but it has become buried over time.”

“Can we go into the shrine to the three gods, Dad!” Ritt enthused. 

“I don’t see why not.” 

Ritt slid down into the hole. “It’s dark!” Tok heard her say. Her voice echoed as though she was inside a cave. Tok slipped past his father and followed Ritt.

Inside the hole he could make out three doorways. The doors had come off whatever had acted as hinges and were propped up by the entrances.

“These symbols on the doors represent the three gods,” said Tok’s father. “See this one?” He indicated a symbol made up from a circle, a triangle, and four lines. “This was the sign of the second god.”

Tok made a face. “It smells.”

“It smells now, because it is ancient. But imagine how splendid it must have been, painted and with candles in it as it would have been in the times of the ancients!”

Tok followed Ritt into the shrine of the second god. Light came from a small window high up in the wall. Inside were three annexes made of disintegrating wood.

“This is where the ancients came to pray. They could shut the doors in order to be alone with the god.” He pushed open one of the doors. Tok saw an object about knee-height to an adult. “This is a sacred monument. The ancients would kneel before it. You can see it is funnel-shaped. They would speak to their god through the funnel.”

Tok stepped forward and touched the sacred monument. It was cold and smooth, like stone.

“What are these monuments for?” Ritt was looking at the line of objects, made from the same material.

Their father shrugged. “Perhaps for burning incense in. The ancients were an inscrutable people. The greatest god has a third monument in its shrine.”

Ritt and Tok looked in the shrines of the other two gods. The greatest did indeed have three types of monuments in its shrine, while the least god had only one sacred monument and one of the other monuments in its shrine. 
As they headed away from the shrine to the gods of the ancients, Ritt and Tok’s father said, “Once, a man came to these parts and he claimed to be able to read the hieroglyphics of the ancients. He read the names of the gods.”

Ritt eagerly craned her neck upwards to look at her father. “What were the names of the ancient’s three gods, Dad?”

“Gents, Ladies, and Disabled.”