The Eye That Sees Water

Under the carved eye were more carvings, small ones, cut into the rock at a height a person could reach. Jana copied the letters carefully into Malik's notebook in pencil. Malik sat on a rock and began to read them letter by letter, as Dr Ruba had taught him.

This message was harder. Some of the letters had been worn away by the wind. But Malik found the pattern and filled in the missing parts, the way you fill in the missing numbers in a sequence.

At last he read aloud:

"When the eye looks at the sun, it sees the water. Follow its gaze."

"The eye looks at the sun?" said Jana. "But it's looking down!"

Malik looked at the eye for a long time. Then at the sun. Then at his watch.

"The sun's in the west now," he said slowly. "And the eye's on the eastern cliff. So right now the sun is shining straight onto the eye. Look at the pupil."

Jana looked, and saw. The deep circle in the middle of the eye was different from the rest of the rock. It was smooth and shiny, as if someone had polished it thousands of times until it became a mirror of stone.