After a couple of miles Teppic saw a column of dust behind the next dune. Eventually they came up behind the main body of the Ephebian army, swinging along around half-a-dozen battle elephants, their helmet plumes waving in the oven breeze. They cheered on general principles as Teppic went past.
Battle elephants! Teppic groaned. Tsort went in for battle elephants, too. Battle elephants were the fashion lately. They weren't much good for anything except trampling on their own troops when they inevitably panicked, so the military minds on both sides had responded by breeding bigger elephants. Elephants were impressive.
For some reason, many of these elephants were towing great carts full of timber.
He jogged onwards as the sun wound higher and, and this was unusual, blue and purple dots began to pinwheel gently across the horizon.
Another strange thing was happening. The camel seemed to be trotting across the sky. Perhaps this had something to do with the ringing noise in his ears.
Should he stop? But then the camel might fall off.
It was long past noon when You Bastard staggered into the baking shade of the limestone outcrop which had once marked the edge of the valley, and collapsed very slowly into the sand. Teppic rolled off.
A detachment of Ephebians were staring across the narrow space towards a very similar number of Tsorteans on the other side. Occasionally, for the look of the thing, one of them waved a spear.
When Teppic opened his eyes it was to see the fearsome bronze masks of several Ephebian soldiers peering down at him. Their metal mouths were locked in sneers of terrible disdain. Their shining eyebrows were twisted in mortal anger.
One of them said, 'He's coming round, sarge.'
A metal face like the anger of the elements came closer, filling Teppic's vision.
'We've been out without our hat, haven't we, sonny boy,' it said, in a cheery voice that echoed oddly inside the metal. 'In a hurry to get to grips with the enemy, were we?'
The sky wheeled around Teppic, but a thought bobbed into the frying pan of his mind, seized control of his vocal chords and croaked: 'The camel!'
'You ought to be put away, treating it like that,' said the sergeant, waggling a finger at him. 'Never seen one in such a state.'
'Don't let it have a drink!' Teppic sat bolt upright, great gongs clanging and hot, heavy fireworks going off inside his skull. The helmeted heads turned towards one another.
'Gods, he must have something really terrible against camels,' said one of them. Teppic staggered upright and lurched across the sand to You Bastard, who was trying to work out the complex equation which would allow him to get to his feet. His tongue was hanging out, and he was not feeling well.
A camel in distress isn't a shy creature. It doesn't hang around in bars, nursing a solitary drink. It doesn't phone up old friends and sob at them. It doesn't mope, or write long soulful poems about Life and how dreadful it is when seen from a bedsitter. It doesn't know what angst is.
All a camel has got is a pair of industrial-strength lungs and a voice like a herd of donkeys being chainsawed.
Teppic advanced through the blaring. You Bastard reared his head and turned it this way and that, triangulating. His eyes rolled madly as he did the camel trick of apparently looking at Teppic with his nostrils.
He spat.
He tried to spit.
Teppic grabbed his halter and pulled on it.
'Come on, you bastard,' he said. 'There's water. You can smell it. All you have to do is work out how to get there!'
He turned to the assembled soldiers. They were staring at him with expressions of amazement, apart from those who hadn't removed their helmets and who were staring at him with expressions of metallic ferocity.
Teppic snatched a water skin from one of them, pulled out the stopper and tipped it on to the ground in front of the camel's twitching nose.
'There's a river here,' he hissed. 'You know where it is, all you've got to do is go there!'
The soldiers looked around nervously. So did several Tsorteans, who had wandered up to see what was going on.
You Bastard got to his feet, knees trembling, and started to spin around in a circle. Teppic clung on.
. . . let d equal 4, thought You Bastard desperately. Let a.d equal 90. Let not-d equal 45 . . .
'I need a stick!' shouted Teppic, as he was whirled past the sergeant. 'They never understand anything unless you hit them with a stick, it's like punctuation to a camel!'
'Is a sword any good?'
'No!'
The sergeant hesitated, and then passed Teppic his spear. He grabbed it point-end first, fought for balance, and then brought it smartly across the camel's flank, raising a cloud of dust and hair.
You Bastard stopped. His ears turned like radar aerials. He stared at the rock wall, rolling his eyes. Then, as Teppic grabbed a handful of hair and pulled himself up, the camel started to trot.
. . . Think fractals . . .
'Ere, you're going to run straight-' the sergeant began.
There was silence. It went on for a long time.
The sergeant shifted uneasily. Then he looked across the rocks to the Tsorteans, and caught the eye of their leader. With the unspoken understanding that is shared by centurions and sergeant-majors everywhere, they walked towards one another along the length of the rocks and stopped by the barely visible crack in the cliff.
The Tsortean sergeant ran his hand over it.
'You'd think there'd be some, you know, camel hairs or something,' he said.
'Or blood,' said the Ephebian.
'I reckon it's one of them unexplainable phenomena.'
'Oh. That's all right, then.'
The two men stared at the stone for a while.
'Like a mirage,' said the Tsortean, helpfully.
'One of them things, yes.'
'I thought I heard a seagull, too.'
'Daft, isn't it. You don't get them out here.'
The Tsortean coughed politely, and stared back at his men.
Then he leaned closer.
'The rest of your people will be along directly, I expect,' he said.
The Ephebian stepped a bit closer and when he spoke, it was out of the corner of his mouth while his eyes apparently remained fully occupied by looking at the rocks.
'That's right,' he said. 'And yours too, may I ask?'
'Yes. I expect we'll have to massacre you if ours get here first.'
'Likewise, I shouldn't wonder. Still, can't be helped.'
'One of those things, really,' agreed the Tsortean. The other man nodded. 'Funny old world, when you come to think about it.'
'You've put your finger on it, all right.' The sergeant loosened his breastplate a bit, glad to be out of the sun. 'Rations okay on your side?' he said.
'Oh, you know. Mustn't grumble.'
'Like us, really.'
''Cos if you do grumble, they get even worse.'
'Just like ours. Here, you haven't got any figs on your side, have you? I could just do with a fig.'
'Sorry.'
'Just thought I'd ask.'
'Got plenty of dates, if they're any good to you.'
'We're okay on dates, thanks.'
'Sorry.'
The two men stood awhile, lost in their own thoughts. Then the Ephebian put on his helmet again, and the Tsortean adjusted his belt.
'Right, then.'
'Right, then.'
They squared their shoulders, stuck out their chins, and marched away. A moment later they turned about smartly and, exchanging the merest flicker of an embarrassed grin, headed back to their own sides.
BOOK IV
Battle elephants! Teppic groaned. Tsort went in for battle elephants, too. Battle elephants were the fashion lately. They weren't much good for anything except trampling on their own troops when they inevitably panicked, so the military minds on both sides had responded by breeding bigger elephants. Elephants were impressive.
For some reason, many of these elephants were towing great carts full of timber.
He jogged onwards as the sun wound higher and, and this was unusual, blue and purple dots began to pinwheel gently across the horizon.
Another strange thing was happening. The camel seemed to be trotting across the sky. Perhaps this had something to do with the ringing noise in his ears.
Should he stop? But then the camel might fall off.
It was long past noon when You Bastard staggered into the baking shade of the limestone outcrop which had once marked the edge of the valley, and collapsed very slowly into the sand. Teppic rolled off.
A detachment of Ephebians were staring across the narrow space towards a very similar number of Tsorteans on the other side. Occasionally, for the look of the thing, one of them waved a spear.
When Teppic opened his eyes it was to see the fearsome bronze masks of several Ephebian soldiers peering down at him. Their metal mouths were locked in sneers of terrible disdain. Their shining eyebrows were twisted in mortal anger.
One of them said, 'He's coming round, sarge.'
A metal face like the anger of the elements came closer, filling Teppic's vision.
'We've been out without our hat, haven't we, sonny boy,' it said, in a cheery voice that echoed oddly inside the metal. 'In a hurry to get to grips with the enemy, were we?'
The sky wheeled around Teppic, but a thought bobbed into the frying pan of his mind, seized control of his vocal chords and croaked: 'The camel!'
'You ought to be put away, treating it like that,' said the sergeant, waggling a finger at him. 'Never seen one in such a state.'
'Don't let it have a drink!' Teppic sat bolt upright, great gongs clanging and hot, heavy fireworks going off inside his skull. The helmeted heads turned towards one another.
'Gods, he must have something really terrible against camels,' said one of them. Teppic staggered upright and lurched across the sand to You Bastard, who was trying to work out the complex equation which would allow him to get to his feet. His tongue was hanging out, and he was not feeling well.
A camel in distress isn't a shy creature. It doesn't hang around in bars, nursing a solitary drink. It doesn't phone up old friends and sob at them. It doesn't mope, or write long soulful poems about Life and how dreadful it is when seen from a bedsitter. It doesn't know what angst is.
All a camel has got is a pair of industrial-strength lungs and a voice like a herd of donkeys being chainsawed.
Teppic advanced through the blaring. You Bastard reared his head and turned it this way and that, triangulating. His eyes rolled madly as he did the camel trick of apparently looking at Teppic with his nostrils.
He spat.
He tried to spit.
Teppic grabbed his halter and pulled on it.
'Come on, you bastard,' he said. 'There's water. You can smell it. All you have to do is work out how to get there!'
He turned to the assembled soldiers. They were staring at him with expressions of amazement, apart from those who hadn't removed their helmets and who were staring at him with expressions of metallic ferocity.
Teppic snatched a water skin from one of them, pulled out the stopper and tipped it on to the ground in front of the camel's twitching nose.
'There's a river here,' he hissed. 'You know where it is, all you've got to do is go there!'
The soldiers looked around nervously. So did several Tsorteans, who had wandered up to see what was going on.
You Bastard got to his feet, knees trembling, and started to spin around in a circle. Teppic clung on.
. . . let d equal 4, thought You Bastard desperately. Let a.d equal 90. Let not-d equal 45 . . .
'I need a stick!' shouted Teppic, as he was whirled past the sergeant. 'They never understand anything unless you hit them with a stick, it's like punctuation to a camel!'
'Is a sword any good?'
'No!'
The sergeant hesitated, and then passed Teppic his spear. He grabbed it point-end first, fought for balance, and then brought it smartly across the camel's flank, raising a cloud of dust and hair.
You Bastard stopped. His ears turned like radar aerials. He stared at the rock wall, rolling his eyes. Then, as Teppic grabbed a handful of hair and pulled himself up, the camel started to trot.
. . . Think fractals . . .
'Ere, you're going to run straight-' the sergeant began.
There was silence. It went on for a long time.
The sergeant shifted uneasily. Then he looked across the rocks to the Tsorteans, and caught the eye of their leader. With the unspoken understanding that is shared by centurions and sergeant-majors everywhere, they walked towards one another along the length of the rocks and stopped by the barely visible crack in the cliff.
The Tsortean sergeant ran his hand over it.
'You'd think there'd be some, you know, camel hairs or something,' he said.
'Or blood,' said the Ephebian.
'I reckon it's one of them unexplainable phenomena.'
'Oh. That's all right, then.'
The two men stared at the stone for a while.
'Like a mirage,' said the Tsortean, helpfully.
'One of them things, yes.'
'I thought I heard a seagull, too.'
'Daft, isn't it. You don't get them out here.'
The Tsortean coughed politely, and stared back at his men.
Then he leaned closer.
'The rest of your people will be along directly, I expect,' he said.
The Ephebian stepped a bit closer and when he spoke, it was out of the corner of his mouth while his eyes apparently remained fully occupied by looking at the rocks.
'That's right,' he said. 'And yours too, may I ask?'
'Yes. I expect we'll have to massacre you if ours get here first.'
'Likewise, I shouldn't wonder. Still, can't be helped.'
'One of those things, really,' agreed the Tsortean. The other man nodded. 'Funny old world, when you come to think about it.'
'You've put your finger on it, all right.' The sergeant loosened his breastplate a bit, glad to be out of the sun. 'Rations okay on your side?' he said.
'Oh, you know. Mustn't grumble.'
'Like us, really.'
''Cos if you do grumble, they get even worse.'
'Just like ours. Here, you haven't got any figs on your side, have you? I could just do with a fig.'
'Sorry.'
'Just thought I'd ask.'
'Got plenty of dates, if they're any good to you.'
'We're okay on dates, thanks.'
'Sorry.'
The two men stood awhile, lost in their own thoughts. Then the Ephebian put on his helmet again, and the Tsortean adjusted his belt.
'Right, then.'
'Right, then.'
They squared their shoulders, stuck out their chins, and marched away. A moment later they turned about smartly and, exchanging the merest flicker of an embarrassed grin, headed back to their own sides.
BOOK IV
The Book of 101 Things A Boy Can Do
Teppic had expected — what?
Possibly the splat of flesh hitting rock. Possibly, although this was on the very edge of expectation, the sight of the Old Kingdom spread out below him.
He hadn't expected chilly, damp mists.
It is now known to science that there are many more dimensions than the classical four. Scientists say that these don't normally impinge on the world because the extra dimensions are very small and curve in on themselves, and that since reality is fractal most of it is tucked inside itself. This means either that the universe is more full of wonders than we can hope to understand or, more probably, that scientists make things up as they go along.
But the multiverse is full of little dimensionettes, playstreets of creation where creatures of the imagination can romp without being knocked down by serious actuality. Sometimes, as they drift through the holes in reality, they impinge back on this universe, when they give rise to myths, legends and charges of being Drunk and Disorderly.
And it was into one of these that You Bastard, by a trivial miscalculation, had trotted.
Legend had got it nearly right. The Sphinx did lurk on the borders of the kingdom. The legend just hadn't been precise about what kind of borders it was talking about.
The Sphinx is an unreal creature. It exists solely because it has been imagined. It is well-known that in an infinite universe everything that can be imagined must exist somewhere, and since many of them are not things that ought to exist in a well-ordered space-time frame they get shoved into a side dimension. This may go some way to explaining the Sphinx's chronic bad temper, although any creature created with the body of a lion, bosom of a woman and wings of an eagle has a serious identity crisis and doesn't need much to make it angry.
So it had devised the Riddle.
Across various dimensions it had provided the Sphinx with considerable entertainment and innumerable meals.
This was not known to Teppic as he led You Bastard through the swirling mists, but the bones he crunched underfoot gave him enough essential detail.
A lot of people had died here. And it was reasonable to assume that the more recent ones had seen the remains of the earlier ones, and would therefore have proceeded stealthily. And that hadn't worked.
No sense in creeping along, then. Besides, some of the rocks that loomed out of the mists had a very distressing shape. This one here, for example, looked exactly like— 'Halt,' said the Sphinx.
There was no sound but the drip of the mist and the occasional sucking noise of You Bastard trying to extract moisture from the air.
'You're a sphinx,' said Teppic.
'The Sphinx,' corrected the Sphinx.
'Gosh. We've got any amount of statues to you at home.' Teppic looked up, and then further up. 'I thought you'd be smaller,' he added.
'Cower, mortal,' said the Sphinx. 'For thou art in the presence of the wise and the terrible.' It blinked. 'Any good, these statues?'
'They don't do you justice,' said Teppic, truthfully.
'Do you really think so? People often get the nose wrong,' said the Sphinx. 'My right profile is best, I'm told, and-' It dawned on the Sphinx that it was sidetracking itself. It coughed sternly.
'Before you can pass me, O mortal,' it said, 'you must answer my riddle.'
'Why?' said Teppic.
'What?' The Sphinx blinked at him. It hadn't been designed for this sort of thing.
'Why? Why? Because. Er. Because, hang on, yes, because I will bite your head off if you don't. Yes, I think that's it.'
'Right,' said Teppic. 'Let's hear it, then.'
The Sphinx cleared its throat with a noise like an empty lorry reversing in a quarry.
'What goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?' said the Sphinx smugly.
Teppic considered this.
'That's a tough one,' he said, eventually.
'The toughest,' said the Sphinx.
'Um.'
'You'll never get it.'
'Ah,' said Teppic.
'Could you take your clothes off while you're thinking? The threads play merry hell with my teeth.'
'There isn't some kind of animal that regrows legs that have been-'
'Entirely the wrong track,' said the Sphinx, stretching its claws.
'Oh.'
'You haven't got the faintest idea, have you?'
'I'm still thinking,' said Teppic.
'You'll never get it.'
'You're right.' Teppic stared at the claws. This isn't really a fighting animal, he told himself reassuringly, it's definitely over-endowed. Besides, its bosom will get in the way, even if its brain doesn't.
'The answer is: «A Man»,' said the Sphinx. 'Now, don't put up a fight, please, it releases unpleasant chemicals into the bloodstream.'
Teppic backed away from a slashing paw. 'Hold on, hold on,' he said. 'What do you mean, a man?'
'It's easy,' said the Sphinx. 'A baby crawls in the morning, stands on both legs at noon, and at evening an old man walks with a stick. Good, isn't it?'
Teppic bit his lip. 'We're talking about one day here?' he said doubtfully.
There was a long, embarrassing silence.
'It's a wossname, a figure of speech,' said the Sphinx irritably, making another lunge.
'No, no, look, wait a minute,' said Teppic. 'I'd like us to be very clear about this, right? I mean, it's only fair, right?'
'Nothing wrong with the riddle,' said the Sphinx. 'Damn good riddle. Had that riddle for fifty years, sphinx and cub.' It thought about this. 'Chick,' it corrected.
'It's a good riddle,' Teppic said soothingly. 'Very deep. Very moving. The whole human condition in a nutshell. But you've got to admit, this doesn't all happen to one individual in one day, does it?'
'Well. No,' the Sphinx admitted. 'But that is self-evident from the context. An element of dramatic analogy is present in all riddles,' it added, with the air of one who had heard the phrase a long time ago and rather liked it, although not to the extent of failing to eat the originator.
'Yes, but,' said Teppic crouching down and brushing a clear space on the damp sand, 'is there internal consistency within the metaphor? Let's say for example that the average life expectancy is seventy years, okay?'
'Okay,' said the Sphinx, in the uncertain tones of someone who has let the salesman in and is now regretfully contemplating a future in which they are undoubtedly going to buy life insurance.
'Right. Good. So noon would be age 35, am I right? Now considering that most children can toddle at a year or so, the four legs reference is really unsuitable, wouldn't you agree? I mean, most of the morning is spent on two legs. According to your analogy' he paused and did a few calculations with a convenient thighbone— 'only about twenty minutes immediately after 00.00 hours, half an hour tops, is spent on four legs. Am I right? Be fair.'
'Well-' said the Sphinx.
'By the same token you wouldn't be using a stick by six p.m. because you'd be only, er, 52,' said Teppic, scribbling furiously. 'In fact you wouldn't really be looking at any kind of walking aid until at least half past nine, I think. That's on the assumption that the entire lifespan takes place over one day which is, I believe I have already pointed out, ridiculous. I'm sorry, it's basically okay, but it doesn't work.'
'Well,' said the Sphinx, but irritably this time, 'I don't see what I can do about it. I haven't got any more. It's the only one I've ever needed.'
'You just need to alter it a bit, that's all.'
'How do you mean?'
'Just make it a bit more realistic.'
'Hmm.' The Sphinx scratched its mane with a claw.
'Okay,' it said doubtfully. 'I suppose I could ask: What is it that walks on four legs'
'Metaphorically speaking,' said Teppic.
'Four legs, metaphorically speaking,' the Sphinx agreed, 'for about-'
'Twenty minutes, I think we agreed.'
'Okay, fine, twenty minutes in the morning, on two legs***'
'But I think calling it in «the morning» is stretching it a bit,' said Teppic. 'It's just after midnight. I mean, technically it's the morning, but in a very real sense it's still last night, what do you think?'
A look of glazed panic crossed the Sphinx's face.
'What do you think?' it managed.
'Let's just see where we've got to, shall we? What, metaphorically speaking, walks on four legs just after midnight, on two legs for most of the day-'
'Barring accidents,' said the Sphinx, pathetically eager to show that it was making a contribution.
'Fine, on two legs barring accidents, until at least suppertime, when it walks with three legs-'
'I've known people use two walking sticks,' said the Sphinx helpfully.
'Okay. How about: when it continues to walk on two legs or with any prosthetic aids of its choice?'
The Sphinx gave this some consideration.
'Ye-ess,' it said gravely. 'That seems to fit all eventualities.'
'Well?' said Teppic.
'Well what?' said the Sphinx.
'Well, what's the answer?'
The Sphinx gave him a stony look, and then showed its fangs.
'Oh no,' it said. 'You don't catch me out like that. You think I'm stupid? You've got to tell me the answer.'
'Oh, blow,' said Teppic.
'Thought you had me there, didn't you?' said the Sphinx.
'Sorry.'
'You thought you could get me all confused, did you?'
The Sphinx grinned.
'It was worth a try,' said Teppic.
'Can't blame you. So what's the answer, then?'
Teppic scratched his nose.
'Haven't a clue,' he said. 'Unless, and this is a shot in the dark, you understand, it's: A Man.'
The Sphinx glared at him.
'You've been here before, haven't you?' it said accusingly.
'No.'
'Then someone's been talking, right?'
'Who could have talked? Has anyone ever guessed the riddle?' said Teppic.
'No!'
'Well, then. They couldn't have talked, could they?'
The Sphinx's claws scrabbled irritably on its rock.
'I suppose you'd better move along, then,' it grumbled.
'Thank you,' said Teppic.
'I'd be grateful if you didn't tell anyone, please,' added the Sphinx, coldly. 'I wouldn't like to spoil it for other people.'
Teppic scrambled up a rock and on to You Bastard.
'Don't you worry about that,' he said, spurring the camel onwards. He couldn't help noticing the way the Sphinx was moving its lips silently, as though trying to work something out.
You Bastard had gone only twenty yards or so before an enraged bellow erupted behind him. For once he forgot the etiquette that says a camel must be hit with a stick before it does anything. All four feet hit the sand and pushed.
This time he got it right.
The priests were going irrational.
It wasn't that the gods were disobeying them. The gods were ignoring them.
The gods always had. It took great skill to persuade a Djelibeybi god to obey you, and the priests had to be fast on their toes. For example, if you pushed a rock off a cliff, then a quick request to the gods that it should fall down was certain to be answered. In the same way, the gods ensured that the sun set and the stars came out. Any petition to the gods to see to it that palm trees grew with their roots in the ground and their leaves on top was certain to be graciously accepted. On the whole, any priest who cared about such things could ensure a high rate of success.
However, it was one thing for the gods to ignore you when they were far off and invisible, and quite another when they were strolling across the landscape. It made you feel such a fool.
'Why don't they listen?' said the high priest of Teg, the Horse-Headed god of agriculture. He was in tears. Teg had last been seen sitting in a field, pulling up corn and giggling.
The other high priests were faring no better. Rituals hallowed by time had filled the air in the palace with sweet blue smoke and cooked enough assorted livestock to feed a famine, but the gods were settling in the Old Kingdom as if they owned it, and the people therein were no more than insects.
And the crowds were still outside. Religion had ruled in the Old Kingdom for the best part of seven thousand years. Behind the eyes of every priest present was a graphic image of what would happen if the people ever thought, for one moment, that it ruled no more.
'And so, Dios,' said Koomi, 'we turn to you. What would you have us do now?'
Dios sat on the steps of the throne and stared gloomily at the floor. The gods didn't listen. He knew that. He knew that, of all people. But it had never mattered before. You just went through the motions and came up with an answer. It was the ritual that was important, not the gods. The gods were there to do the duties of a megaphone, because who else would people listen to?
While he fought to think clearly his hands went through the motions of the Ritual of the Seventh Hour, guided by neural instructions as rigid and unchangeable as crystals.
'You have tried everything?' he said.
'Everything that you advised, O Dios,' said Koomi. He waited until most of the priests were watching them and then, in a rather louder voice, continued: 'If the king was here, he would intercede for us.'
He caught the eye of the priestess of Sarduk. He hadn't discussed things with her; indeed, what was there to discuss? But he had an inkling that there was some fellow, sorry, feeling there. She didn't like Dios very much, but was less in awe of him than were the others.
'I told you that the king is dead,' said Dios.
'Yes, we heard you. Yet there seems to be no body, O Dios. Nevertheless, we believe what you tell us, for it is the great Dios that speaks, and we pay no heed to malicious gossip.'
The priests were silent. Malicious gossip, too? And somebody had already mentioned rumours, hadn't they? Definitely something amiss here.
'It happened many times in the past,' said the priestess, on
— cue. 'When a kingdom was threatened or the river did not rise, the king went to intercede with the gods. Was sent to intercede with the gods.'
The edge of satisfaction in her voice made it clear that it was a one-way trip.
Koomi shivered with delight and horror. Oh, yes. Those were the days. Some countries had experimented with the idea of the sacrificial king, long ago. A few years of feasting and ruling, then chop — and make way for a new administration.
'In a time of crisis, possibly any high-born minister of state would suffice,' she went on.
Dios looked up, his face mirroring the agony of his tendons.
'I see,' he said. 'And who would be high priest then?'
'The gods would choose,' said Koomi.
'I daresay they would,' said Dios sourly. 'I am in some doubt as to the wisdom of their choice.'
'The dead can speak to the gods in the netherworld,' said the priestess.
'But the gods are all here,' said Dios, fighting against the throbbing in his legs, which were insisting that, at this time, they should be walking along the central corridor en route to supervise the Rite of the Under Sky. His body cried out for the solace over the river. And once over the river, never to return . . . but he'd always said that.
'In the absence of the king the high priest performs his duties. Isn't that right, Dios?' said Koomi.
It was. It was written. You couldn't rewrite it, once it was written. He'd written it. Long ago.
Dios hung his head. This was worse than plumbing, this was worse than anything. And yet, and yet. . . to go across the river . . .
'Very well, then,' he said. 'I have one final request.'
'Yes?' Koomi's voice had timbre now, it was already a high priest's voice.
'I wish to be interred in the-' Dios began, and was cut off by a murmur from those priests who could look out across the river. All eyes turned to the distant, inky shore.
The legions of the kings of Djelibeybi were on the march. They lurched, but they covered the ground quickly. There were platoons, battalions of them. They didn't need Gern's hammer any more.
'It's the pickle,' said the king, as they watched half-a— dozen ancestors mummyhandle a seal out of its socket. 'It toughens you up.'
Some of the more ancient were getting over enthusiastic and attacking the pyramids themselves, actually managing to shift blocks higher than they were. The king didn't blame them. How terrible to be dead, and know you were dead, and locked away in the darkness.
They're never going to get me in one of those things, he vowed.
At last they came, like a tide, to yet another pyramid. — It was small, low, dark, half-concealed in drifted sands, and the blocks were hardly even masonry; they were no more than roughly squared boulders. It had clearly been built long before the Kingdom got the hang of pyramids. It was barely more than a pile.
Hacked into the doorseal, angular and deep, were the hieroglyphs of the Kingdom: KHUFT HAD ME MADE. THE FIRST.
Several ancestors clustered around it.
'Oh dear,' said the king. 'This might be going too far.'
'The First,' whispered Dil. 'The First into the Kingdom: No— one here before but hippos and crocodiles. From inside that pyramid seventy centuries look out at us. Older than anything-'
'Yes, yes, all right,' said Teppicymon. 'No need to get carried away. He was a man, just like all of us.'
'"AndKhuftthecamelherderlookeduponthevalley. . ."' Dil began.
'After seven thousand yeares, he wyll be wantyng to look upon yt again,' said Ashk-ur-men-tep bluntly.
'Even so,' said the king. 'It does seem a bit . .
'The dead are equal,' said Ashk-ur-men-tep. 'You, younge manne. Calle hym forth.'
'Who, me?' said Gern. 'But he was the Fir-'
'Yes, we've been through all that,' said Teppicymon. 'Do it. Everyone's getting impatient. So is he, I expect.'
Gern rolled his eyes, and hefted the hammer. Just as it was about to hiss down on the seal Dil darted forward, causing Gern to dance wildly across the ground in a groin-straining effort to avoid interring the hammer in his master's head.
'It's open!' said Dil. 'Look! The seal just swings aside!'
'Youe meane he iss oute?'
Teppicymon tottered forward and grabbed the door of the pyramid. It moved quite easily. Then he examined the stone beneath it. Derelict and half-covered though it was, someone had taken care to keep a pathway clear to the pyramid. And the stone was quite worn away, as by the passage of many feet.
This was not, by the nature of things, the normal state of affairs for a pyramid. The whole point was that once you were in, you were in.
The mummies examined the worn entrance and creaked at one another in surprise. One of the very ancient ones, who was barely holding himself together, made a noise like deathwatch beetle finally conquering a rotten tree.
'What'd he say?' said Teppicymon.
The mummy of Ashk-ur-men-tep translated. 'He saide yt ys Spooky,' he croaked.
The late king nodded. 'I'm going in to have a look. You two live ones, you come with me.'
Dil's face fell.
'Oh, come on, man,' snapped Teppicymon, forcing the door back. 'Look, I'm not frightened. Show a bit of backbone. Everyone else is.'
'But we'll need some light,' protested Dil.
The nearest mummies lurched back sharply as Gern timidly took a tinderbox out of his pocket.
'We'll need something to burn,' said Dil. The mummies shuffled further back, muttering.
'There's torches in here,' said Teppicymon, his voice slightly muffled. 'And you can keep them away from me, lad.'
It was a small pyramid, mazeless, without traps, just a stone passage leading upwards. Tremulously, expecting at any moment to see unnamed terrors leap out at them, the embalmers followed the king into a small, square chamber that smelled of sand. The roof was black with soot.
There was no sarcophagus within, no mummy case, no terror named or nameless. The centre of the floor was occupied by a raised block, with a blanket and a pillow on it.
Neither of them looked particularly old. It was almost disappointing.
Gern craned to look around.
'Quite nice, really,' he said. 'Comfy.'
'No,' said Dil.
'Hey, master king, look here,' said Gern, trotting over to one of the walls. 'Look. Someone's been scratching things. Look, all little lines all over the wall.'
'And this wall,' said the king, 'and the floor. Someone's been counting. Every ten have been crossed through, you see. Someone's been counting things. Lots of things.' He stood back.
'What things?' said Dil, looking behind him.
'Very strange,' said the king. He leaned forward. 'You can barely make out the inscriptions underneath.'
'Can you read it, king?' said Gern, showing what Dil considered to be unnecessary enthusiasm.
'No. It's one of the really ancient dialects. Can't make out a blessed hieroglyph,' said Teppicymon. 'I shouldn't think there's a single person alive today who can read it.'
'That's a shame,' said Gern.
'True enough,' said the king, and sighed. They stood in gloomy silence.
'So perhaps we could ask one of the dead ones?' said Gern.
'Er. Gern,' said Dil, backing away.
The king slapped the apprentice on the back, pitching him forward.
'Damn clever idea!' he said. 'We'll just go and get one of the real early ancestors. Oh.' He sagged. 'That's no good. No-one will be able to understand them-'
'Gern!' said Dil, his eyes growing wider.
'No, it's all right, king,' said Gern, enjoying the new-found freedom of thought, 'because, the reason being, everyone understands someone, all we have to do is sort them out.'
'Bright lad. Bright lad,' said the king.
'Gern!'
They both looked at him in astonishment.
'You all right, master?' said Gern. 'You've gone all white.'
'The t-' stuttered Dil, rigid with terror.
'The what, master?'
'The t— look at the t-'
'He ought to have a lie down,' said the king. 'I know his sort. The artistic type. Highly strung.'
Dil took a deep breath.
'Look at the sodding torch, Gern!' he shouted.
They looked.
Without any fuss, turning its black ashes into dry straw, the torch was burning backwards.
The Old Kingdom lay stretched out before Teppic, and it was unreal.
He looked at You Bastard, who had stuck his muzzle in a wayside spring and was making a noise like the last drop in the milkshake glass27. You Bastard looked real enough. There's nothing like a camel for looking really solid. But the landscape had an uncertain quality, as if it hadn't quite made up its mind to be there or not.
Except for the Great Pyramid. It squatted in the middle distance as real as the pin that nails a butterfly to a board. It was contriving to look extremely solid, as though it was sucking all the solidity out of the landscape into itself.
Well, he was here. Wherever here was.
How did you kill a pyramid?
And what would happen if you did?
He was working on the hypothesis that everything would snap back into place. Into the Old Kingdom's pool of recirculated time.
He watched the gods for a while, wondering what the hell they were, and how it didn't seem to matter. They looked no more real than the land over which they strode, about incomprehensible errands of their own. The world was no more than a dream. Teppic felt incapable of surprise. If seven fat cows had wandered by, he wouldn't have given them a second glance.
He remounted You Bastard and rode him, sloshing gently, down the road. The fields on either side had a devastated look.
The sun was finally sinking; the gods of night and evening were prevailing over the daylight gods, but it had been a long struggle and, when you thought about all the things that would happen to it now — eaten by goddesses, carried on boats under the world, and so on — it was an odds-on chance that it wouldn't be seen again.
No-one was visible as he rode into the stable yard. You Bastard padded sedately to his stall and pulled delicately at a wisp of hay. He'd thought of something interesting about bivariant distributions.
Teppic patted him on the flank, raising another cloud, and walked up the wide steps that led to the palace proper. Still there were no guards, no servants. No living soul.
He slipped into his own palace like a thief in the day, and found his way to Dil's workshop. It was empty, and looked as though a robber with very peculiar tastes had recently been at work in there. The throne room smelled like a kitchen, and by the looks of it the cooks had fled in a hurry.
The gold mask of the kings of Djelibeybi, slightly buckled out of shape, had rolled into a corner. He picked it up and, on a suspicion, scratched it with one of his knives. The gold peeled away, exposing a silver-grey gleam.
He'd suspected that. There simply wasn't that much gold around. The mask felt as heavy as lead because, well, it was lead. He wondered if it had ever been all gold, and which ancestor had done it, and how many pyramids it had paid for. It was probably very symbolic of something or other. Perhaps not even symbolic of anything. Just symbolic, all by itself.
One of the sacred cats was hiding under the throne. It flattened its ears and spat at Teppic as he reached down to pat it. That much hadn't changed, at least.
Still no people. He padded across to the balcony.
And there the people were, a great silent mass, staring across the river in the fading, leaden light. As Teppic watched a flotilla of boats and ferries set out from the near bank.
We ought to have been building bridges, he thought. But we said that would be shackling the river.
He dropped lightly over the balustrade on to the packed earth and walked down to the crowd.
And the full force of its belief scythed into him.
The people of Djelibeybi might have had conflicting ideas about their gods, but their belief in their kings had been unswerving for thousands of years. To Teppic it was like walking into a vat of alcohol. He felt it pouring into him until his fingertips crackled, rising up through his body until it gushed into his brain, bringing not omnipotence but the feeling of omnipotence, the very strong sensation that while he didn't actually know everything, he would do soon and had done once.
It had been like this back in Ankh, when the divinity had hooked him. But that had been just a flicker. Now it had the solid power of real belief behind it.
He looked down at a rustling below him, and saw green shoots springing out of the dry sand around his feet.
Bloody hell, he thought. I really am a god.
This could be very embarrassing.
He shouldered his way through the press of people until he reached the riverbank and stood there in a thickening clump of corn. As the crowd caught on, those nearest fell to their knees, and a circle of reverentially collapsing people spread out from Teppic like ripples.
But I never wanted this! I just wanted to help people live more happily, with plumbing. I wanted something done about rundown inner-city areas. I just wanted to put them at their ease, and ask them how they enjoyed their lives. I thought schools might be a good idea, so they wouldn't fall down and worship someone just because he's got green feet.
And I wanted to do something about the architecture… As the light drained from the sky like steel going cold the pyramid was somehow even bigger than before. If you had to design something to give the very distinct impression of mass, the pyramid was It. There was a crowd of figures around it, unidentifiable in the grey light.
Teppic looked around the prostrate crowd until he saw someone in the uniform of the palace guard.
'You, man, on your feet,' he commanded.
The man gave him a look of dread, but did stagger sheepishly upright.
'What's going on here?'
'O king, who is the lord of-'
'I don't think we have time,' said Teppic. 'I know who I am, I want to know what's happening.'
'O king, we saw the dead walking! The priests have gone to talk to them.'
'The dead walking?'
'Yes, O king.'
'We're talking about not-alive people here, are we?'
'Yes, O king.'
'Oh. Well, thank you. That was very succinct. Not informative, but succinct. Are there any boats around?'
'The priests took them all, O king.'
Teppic could see that this was true. The jetties near the palace were usually thronged with boats, and now they were all empty. As he stared at the water it grew two eyes and a long snout, to remind him that swimming the Djel was as feasible as nailing fog to the wall.
He stared at the crowd. Every person was watching him expectantly, convinced that he would know what to do next.
He turned back to the river, extended his hands in front of him, pressed them together and then opened them gently. There was a damp sucking noise, and the waters of the Djel parted in front of him. There was a sigh from the crowd, but their astonishment was nothing to the surprise of a dozen or so crocodiles, who were left trying to swim in ten feet of air.
Teppic ran down the bank and over the heavy mud, dodging to avoid the tails that slashed wildly at him as the reptiles dropped heavily on to the riverbed.
The Djel loomed up as two khaki walls, so that he was running along a damp and shadowy alley. Here and there were fragments of bones, old shields, bits of spear, the ribs of boats. He leapt and jinked around the debris of centuries.
Ahead of him a big bull crocodile propelled itself dreamily out of the wall of water, flailed madly in mid-air, and flopped into the ooze. Teppic trod heavily on its snout and plunged on.
Behind him a few of the quicker citizens, seeing the dazed creatures below them, began to look for stones. The crocodiles had been undisputed masters of the river since primordial times, but if it was possible to do a little catching-up in the space of a few minutes, it was certainly worth a try.
The sound of the monsters of the river beginning the long journey to handbaghood broke out behind Teppic as he sloshed up the far bank.
A line of ancestors stretched across the chamber, down the dark passageway, and out into the sand. It was filled with whispers going in both directions, a dry sound, like the wind blowing through old paper.
Dil lay on the sand, with Gern flapping a cloth in his face.
'Wha' they doing?' he murmured.
'Reading the inscription,' said Gern. 'You ought to see it, master! The one doing the reading, he's practically a-'
'Yes, yes, all right,' said Dil, struggling up.
'He's more than six thousand years old! And his grandson's listening to him, and telling his grandson, and he's telling his gra-'
'Yes, yes, all-'
'"And Khuft-too-said-Unto-the-First, What-may-We-Give-Unto— You, Who-Has-Taught-Us-the-Right-Ways»,' said Teppicymon28, who was at the end of the line. '"And-the-First-Spake, and-This-He-Spake, Build— for-Me-a-Pyramid, That-I-May-Rest, and-Build-it-of-These— Dimensions, That-it-Be-Proper. And-Thus-It-Was-Done, and-The-Name— of-the-First-was . . ."'
But there was no name. It was just a babble of raised voices, arguments, ancient cursewords, spreading along the line of desiccated ancestors like a spark along a powder trail. Until it reached Teppicymon, who exploded.
The Ephebian sergeant, quietly perspiring in the shade, saw what he had been half expecting and wholly dreading. There was a column of dust on the opposite horizon. The Tsorteans' main force was getting there first.
He stood up, nodded professionally to his counterpart across the way, and looked at the double handful of men under his command.
'I need a messenger to take, er, a message back to the city,' he said. A forest of hands shot up. The sergeant sighed, and selected young Autocue, who he knew was missing his mum.
'Run like the wind,' he said. 'Although I expect you won't need telling, will you? And then . . . and then . .
He stood with his lips moving silently, while the sun scoured the rocks of the hot, narrow pass and a few insects buzzed in the scrub bushes. His education hadn't included a course in Famous Last Words.
He raised his eyes in the direction of home.
'Go, tell the Ephebians-' he began.
The soldiers waited.
'What?' said Autocue after a while. 'Go and tell them what?'
The sergeant relaxed, like air being let out of a balloon.
'Go and tell them, what kept you?' he said. On the near horizon another column of dust was advancing.
This was more like it. If there was going to be a massacre, then it ought to be shared by both sides.
The city of the dead lay before Teppic. After Ankh-Morpork, which was almost its direct opposite (in Ankh, even the bedding was alive) it was probably the biggest city on the Disc; its streets were the finest, its architecture the most majestic and awe— inspiring.
In population terms the necropolis outstripped the other cities of the Old Kingdom, but its people didn't get out much and there was nothing to do on Saturday nights.
Until now.
Now it thronged:
Teppic watched from the top of a wind-etched obelisk as the grey and brown, and here and there somewhat greenish, armies of the departed passed beneath him. The kings had been democratic. After the pyramids had been emptied gangs of them had turned their attention to the lesser tombs, and now the necropolis really did have its tradesmen, its nobles and even its artisans. Not that there was, by and large, any way of telling the difference.
They were, to a corpse, heading for the Great Pyramid. It loomed like a carbuncle over the lesser, older buildings. And they all seemed very angry about something.
Teppic dropped lightly on to the wide flat roof of a mastaba, jogged to its far end, cleared the gap on to an ornamental sphinx
— not without a moment's worry, but this one seemed inert enough — and from there it was but the throw of a grapnel to one of the lower storeys of a step pyramid. The long light of the contentious sun lanced across the spent landscape as he leapt from monument to monument, zig-zagging high above the shuffling army.
Behind him shoots appeared briefly in the ancient stone, cracking it a little, and then withered and died.
This, said his blood as it tingled around his body, is what you trained for. Even Mericet couldn't mark you down for this. Speeding in the shadows above a silent city, running like a cat, finding handholds that would have perplexed a gecko — and, at the destination, a victim.
True, it was a billion tons of pyramid, and hitherto the largest client of an inhumation had been Patricio, the 23-stone Despot of Quirm.
A monumental needle recording in bas-relief the achievements of a king four thousand years ago, and which would have been more pertinent if the wind-driven sand hadn't long ago eroded his name, provided a handy ladder which needed only an expertly thrown grapnel from its top, lodging in the outstretched fingers of a forgotten monarch, to allow him a long, gentle arc on to the roof of a tomb.
Running, climbing and swinging, hastily hammering crampons in the memorials of the dead, Teppic went forth.
Pinpoints of firelight among the limestone pricked out the lines of the opposing armies. Deep and stylised though the enmity was between the two empires, they both abided by the ancient tradition that warfare wasn't undertaken at night, during harvest or when wet. It was important enough to save up for special occasions. Going at it hammer and tongs just reduced the whole thing to a farce.
In the twilight on both sides of the line came the busy sound of advanced woodwork in progress.
It's said that generals are always ready to fight the last War over again. It had been thousands of years since the last war between Tsort and Ephebe, but generals have long memories and this time they were ready for it.
On both sides of the line, wooden horses were taking shape.
'It's gone,' said Ptaclusp IIb, slithering back down the pile of rubble.
Possibly the splat of flesh hitting rock. Possibly, although this was on the very edge of expectation, the sight of the Old Kingdom spread out below him.
He hadn't expected chilly, damp mists.
It is now known to science that there are many more dimensions than the classical four. Scientists say that these don't normally impinge on the world because the extra dimensions are very small and curve in on themselves, and that since reality is fractal most of it is tucked inside itself. This means either that the universe is more full of wonders than we can hope to understand or, more probably, that scientists make things up as they go along.
But the multiverse is full of little dimensionettes, playstreets of creation where creatures of the imagination can romp without being knocked down by serious actuality. Sometimes, as they drift through the holes in reality, they impinge back on this universe, when they give rise to myths, legends and charges of being Drunk and Disorderly.
And it was into one of these that You Bastard, by a trivial miscalculation, had trotted.
Legend had got it nearly right. The Sphinx did lurk on the borders of the kingdom. The legend just hadn't been precise about what kind of borders it was talking about.
The Sphinx is an unreal creature. It exists solely because it has been imagined. It is well-known that in an infinite universe everything that can be imagined must exist somewhere, and since many of them are not things that ought to exist in a well-ordered space-time frame they get shoved into a side dimension. This may go some way to explaining the Sphinx's chronic bad temper, although any creature created with the body of a lion, bosom of a woman and wings of an eagle has a serious identity crisis and doesn't need much to make it angry.
So it had devised the Riddle.
Across various dimensions it had provided the Sphinx with considerable entertainment and innumerable meals.
This was not known to Teppic as he led You Bastard through the swirling mists, but the bones he crunched underfoot gave him enough essential detail.
A lot of people had died here. And it was reasonable to assume that the more recent ones had seen the remains of the earlier ones, and would therefore have proceeded stealthily. And that hadn't worked.
No sense in creeping along, then. Besides, some of the rocks that loomed out of the mists had a very distressing shape. This one here, for example, looked exactly like— 'Halt,' said the Sphinx.
There was no sound but the drip of the mist and the occasional sucking noise of You Bastard trying to extract moisture from the air.
'You're a sphinx,' said Teppic.
'The Sphinx,' corrected the Sphinx.
'Gosh. We've got any amount of statues to you at home.' Teppic looked up, and then further up. 'I thought you'd be smaller,' he added.
'Cower, mortal,' said the Sphinx. 'For thou art in the presence of the wise and the terrible.' It blinked. 'Any good, these statues?'
'They don't do you justice,' said Teppic, truthfully.
'Do you really think so? People often get the nose wrong,' said the Sphinx. 'My right profile is best, I'm told, and-' It dawned on the Sphinx that it was sidetracking itself. It coughed sternly.
'Before you can pass me, O mortal,' it said, 'you must answer my riddle.'
'Why?' said Teppic.
'What?' The Sphinx blinked at him. It hadn't been designed for this sort of thing.
'Why? Why? Because. Er. Because, hang on, yes, because I will bite your head off if you don't. Yes, I think that's it.'
'Right,' said Teppic. 'Let's hear it, then.'
The Sphinx cleared its throat with a noise like an empty lorry reversing in a quarry.
'What goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?' said the Sphinx smugly.
Teppic considered this.
'That's a tough one,' he said, eventually.
'The toughest,' said the Sphinx.
'Um.'
'You'll never get it.'
'Ah,' said Teppic.
'Could you take your clothes off while you're thinking? The threads play merry hell with my teeth.'
'There isn't some kind of animal that regrows legs that have been-'
'Entirely the wrong track,' said the Sphinx, stretching its claws.
'Oh.'
'You haven't got the faintest idea, have you?'
'I'm still thinking,' said Teppic.
'You'll never get it.'
'You're right.' Teppic stared at the claws. This isn't really a fighting animal, he told himself reassuringly, it's definitely over-endowed. Besides, its bosom will get in the way, even if its brain doesn't.
'The answer is: «A Man»,' said the Sphinx. 'Now, don't put up a fight, please, it releases unpleasant chemicals into the bloodstream.'
Teppic backed away from a slashing paw. 'Hold on, hold on,' he said. 'What do you mean, a man?'
'It's easy,' said the Sphinx. 'A baby crawls in the morning, stands on both legs at noon, and at evening an old man walks with a stick. Good, isn't it?'
Teppic bit his lip. 'We're talking about one day here?' he said doubtfully.
There was a long, embarrassing silence.
'It's a wossname, a figure of speech,' said the Sphinx irritably, making another lunge.
'No, no, look, wait a minute,' said Teppic. 'I'd like us to be very clear about this, right? I mean, it's only fair, right?'
'Nothing wrong with the riddle,' said the Sphinx. 'Damn good riddle. Had that riddle for fifty years, sphinx and cub.' It thought about this. 'Chick,' it corrected.
'It's a good riddle,' Teppic said soothingly. 'Very deep. Very moving. The whole human condition in a nutshell. But you've got to admit, this doesn't all happen to one individual in one day, does it?'
'Well. No,' the Sphinx admitted. 'But that is self-evident from the context. An element of dramatic analogy is present in all riddles,' it added, with the air of one who had heard the phrase a long time ago and rather liked it, although not to the extent of failing to eat the originator.
'Yes, but,' said Teppic crouching down and brushing a clear space on the damp sand, 'is there internal consistency within the metaphor? Let's say for example that the average life expectancy is seventy years, okay?'
'Okay,' said the Sphinx, in the uncertain tones of someone who has let the salesman in and is now regretfully contemplating a future in which they are undoubtedly going to buy life insurance.
'Right. Good. So noon would be age 35, am I right? Now considering that most children can toddle at a year or so, the four legs reference is really unsuitable, wouldn't you agree? I mean, most of the morning is spent on two legs. According to your analogy' he paused and did a few calculations with a convenient thighbone— 'only about twenty minutes immediately after 00.00 hours, half an hour tops, is spent on four legs. Am I right? Be fair.'
'Well-' said the Sphinx.
'By the same token you wouldn't be using a stick by six p.m. because you'd be only, er, 52,' said Teppic, scribbling furiously. 'In fact you wouldn't really be looking at any kind of walking aid until at least half past nine, I think. That's on the assumption that the entire lifespan takes place over one day which is, I believe I have already pointed out, ridiculous. I'm sorry, it's basically okay, but it doesn't work.'
'Well,' said the Sphinx, but irritably this time, 'I don't see what I can do about it. I haven't got any more. It's the only one I've ever needed.'
'You just need to alter it a bit, that's all.'
'How do you mean?'
'Just make it a bit more realistic.'
'Hmm.' The Sphinx scratched its mane with a claw.
'Okay,' it said doubtfully. 'I suppose I could ask: What is it that walks on four legs'
'Metaphorically speaking,' said Teppic.
'Four legs, metaphorically speaking,' the Sphinx agreed, 'for about-'
'Twenty minutes, I think we agreed.'
'Okay, fine, twenty minutes in the morning, on two legs***'
'But I think calling it in «the morning» is stretching it a bit,' said Teppic. 'It's just after midnight. I mean, technically it's the morning, but in a very real sense it's still last night, what do you think?'
A look of glazed panic crossed the Sphinx's face.
'What do you think?' it managed.
'Let's just see where we've got to, shall we? What, metaphorically speaking, walks on four legs just after midnight, on two legs for most of the day-'
'Barring accidents,' said the Sphinx, pathetically eager to show that it was making a contribution.
'Fine, on two legs barring accidents, until at least suppertime, when it walks with three legs-'
'I've known people use two walking sticks,' said the Sphinx helpfully.
'Okay. How about: when it continues to walk on two legs or with any prosthetic aids of its choice?'
The Sphinx gave this some consideration.
'Ye-ess,' it said gravely. 'That seems to fit all eventualities.'
'Well?' said Teppic.
'Well what?' said the Sphinx.
'Well, what's the answer?'
The Sphinx gave him a stony look, and then showed its fangs.
'Oh no,' it said. 'You don't catch me out like that. You think I'm stupid? You've got to tell me the answer.'
'Oh, blow,' said Teppic.
'Thought you had me there, didn't you?' said the Sphinx.
'Sorry.'
'You thought you could get me all confused, did you?'
The Sphinx grinned.
'It was worth a try,' said Teppic.
'Can't blame you. So what's the answer, then?'
Teppic scratched his nose.
'Haven't a clue,' he said. 'Unless, and this is a shot in the dark, you understand, it's: A Man.'
The Sphinx glared at him.
'You've been here before, haven't you?' it said accusingly.
'No.'
'Then someone's been talking, right?'
'Who could have talked? Has anyone ever guessed the riddle?' said Teppic.
'No!'
'Well, then. They couldn't have talked, could they?'
The Sphinx's claws scrabbled irritably on its rock.
'I suppose you'd better move along, then,' it grumbled.
'Thank you,' said Teppic.
'I'd be grateful if you didn't tell anyone, please,' added the Sphinx, coldly. 'I wouldn't like to spoil it for other people.'
Teppic scrambled up a rock and on to You Bastard.
'Don't you worry about that,' he said, spurring the camel onwards. He couldn't help noticing the way the Sphinx was moving its lips silently, as though trying to work something out.
You Bastard had gone only twenty yards or so before an enraged bellow erupted behind him. For once he forgot the etiquette that says a camel must be hit with a stick before it does anything. All four feet hit the sand and pushed.
This time he got it right.
The priests were going irrational.
It wasn't that the gods were disobeying them. The gods were ignoring them.
The gods always had. It took great skill to persuade a Djelibeybi god to obey you, and the priests had to be fast on their toes. For example, if you pushed a rock off a cliff, then a quick request to the gods that it should fall down was certain to be answered. In the same way, the gods ensured that the sun set and the stars came out. Any petition to the gods to see to it that palm trees grew with their roots in the ground and their leaves on top was certain to be graciously accepted. On the whole, any priest who cared about such things could ensure a high rate of success.
However, it was one thing for the gods to ignore you when they were far off and invisible, and quite another when they were strolling across the landscape. It made you feel such a fool.
'Why don't they listen?' said the high priest of Teg, the Horse-Headed god of agriculture. He was in tears. Teg had last been seen sitting in a field, pulling up corn and giggling.
The other high priests were faring no better. Rituals hallowed by time had filled the air in the palace with sweet blue smoke and cooked enough assorted livestock to feed a famine, but the gods were settling in the Old Kingdom as if they owned it, and the people therein were no more than insects.
And the crowds were still outside. Religion had ruled in the Old Kingdom for the best part of seven thousand years. Behind the eyes of every priest present was a graphic image of what would happen if the people ever thought, for one moment, that it ruled no more.
'And so, Dios,' said Koomi, 'we turn to you. What would you have us do now?'
Dios sat on the steps of the throne and stared gloomily at the floor. The gods didn't listen. He knew that. He knew that, of all people. But it had never mattered before. You just went through the motions and came up with an answer. It was the ritual that was important, not the gods. The gods were there to do the duties of a megaphone, because who else would people listen to?
While he fought to think clearly his hands went through the motions of the Ritual of the Seventh Hour, guided by neural instructions as rigid and unchangeable as crystals.
'You have tried everything?' he said.
'Everything that you advised, O Dios,' said Koomi. He waited until most of the priests were watching them and then, in a rather louder voice, continued: 'If the king was here, he would intercede for us.'
He caught the eye of the priestess of Sarduk. He hadn't discussed things with her; indeed, what was there to discuss? But he had an inkling that there was some fellow, sorry, feeling there. She didn't like Dios very much, but was less in awe of him than were the others.
'I told you that the king is dead,' said Dios.
'Yes, we heard you. Yet there seems to be no body, O Dios. Nevertheless, we believe what you tell us, for it is the great Dios that speaks, and we pay no heed to malicious gossip.'
The priests were silent. Malicious gossip, too? And somebody had already mentioned rumours, hadn't they? Definitely something amiss here.
'It happened many times in the past,' said the priestess, on
— cue. 'When a kingdom was threatened or the river did not rise, the king went to intercede with the gods. Was sent to intercede with the gods.'
The edge of satisfaction in her voice made it clear that it was a one-way trip.
Koomi shivered with delight and horror. Oh, yes. Those were the days. Some countries had experimented with the idea of the sacrificial king, long ago. A few years of feasting and ruling, then chop — and make way for a new administration.
'In a time of crisis, possibly any high-born minister of state would suffice,' she went on.
Dios looked up, his face mirroring the agony of his tendons.
'I see,' he said. 'And who would be high priest then?'
'The gods would choose,' said Koomi.
'I daresay they would,' said Dios sourly. 'I am in some doubt as to the wisdom of their choice.'
'The dead can speak to the gods in the netherworld,' said the priestess.
'But the gods are all here,' said Dios, fighting against the throbbing in his legs, which were insisting that, at this time, they should be walking along the central corridor en route to supervise the Rite of the Under Sky. His body cried out for the solace over the river. And once over the river, never to return . . . but he'd always said that.
'In the absence of the king the high priest performs his duties. Isn't that right, Dios?' said Koomi.
It was. It was written. You couldn't rewrite it, once it was written. He'd written it. Long ago.
Dios hung his head. This was worse than plumbing, this was worse than anything. And yet, and yet. . . to go across the river . . .
'Very well, then,' he said. 'I have one final request.'
'Yes?' Koomi's voice had timbre now, it was already a high priest's voice.
'I wish to be interred in the-' Dios began, and was cut off by a murmur from those priests who could look out across the river. All eyes turned to the distant, inky shore.
The legions of the kings of Djelibeybi were on the march. They lurched, but they covered the ground quickly. There were platoons, battalions of them. They didn't need Gern's hammer any more.
'It's the pickle,' said the king, as they watched half-a— dozen ancestors mummyhandle a seal out of its socket. 'It toughens you up.'
Some of the more ancient were getting over enthusiastic and attacking the pyramids themselves, actually managing to shift blocks higher than they were. The king didn't blame them. How terrible to be dead, and know you were dead, and locked away in the darkness.
They're never going to get me in one of those things, he vowed.
At last they came, like a tide, to yet another pyramid. — It was small, low, dark, half-concealed in drifted sands, and the blocks were hardly even masonry; they were no more than roughly squared boulders. It had clearly been built long before the Kingdom got the hang of pyramids. It was barely more than a pile.
Hacked into the doorseal, angular and deep, were the hieroglyphs of the Kingdom: KHUFT HAD ME MADE. THE FIRST.
Several ancestors clustered around it.
'Oh dear,' said the king. 'This might be going too far.'
'The First,' whispered Dil. 'The First into the Kingdom: No— one here before but hippos and crocodiles. From inside that pyramid seventy centuries look out at us. Older than anything-'
'Yes, yes, all right,' said Teppicymon. 'No need to get carried away. He was a man, just like all of us.'
'"AndKhuftthecamelherderlookeduponthevalley. . ."' Dil began.
'After seven thousand yeares, he wyll be wantyng to look upon yt again,' said Ashk-ur-men-tep bluntly.
'Even so,' said the king. 'It does seem a bit . .
'The dead are equal,' said Ashk-ur-men-tep. 'You, younge manne. Calle hym forth.'
'Who, me?' said Gern. 'But he was the Fir-'
'Yes, we've been through all that,' said Teppicymon. 'Do it. Everyone's getting impatient. So is he, I expect.'
Gern rolled his eyes, and hefted the hammer. Just as it was about to hiss down on the seal Dil darted forward, causing Gern to dance wildly across the ground in a groin-straining effort to avoid interring the hammer in his master's head.
'It's open!' said Dil. 'Look! The seal just swings aside!'
'Youe meane he iss oute?'
Teppicymon tottered forward and grabbed the door of the pyramid. It moved quite easily. Then he examined the stone beneath it. Derelict and half-covered though it was, someone had taken care to keep a pathway clear to the pyramid. And the stone was quite worn away, as by the passage of many feet.
This was not, by the nature of things, the normal state of affairs for a pyramid. The whole point was that once you were in, you were in.
The mummies examined the worn entrance and creaked at one another in surprise. One of the very ancient ones, who was barely holding himself together, made a noise like deathwatch beetle finally conquering a rotten tree.
'What'd he say?' said Teppicymon.
The mummy of Ashk-ur-men-tep translated. 'He saide yt ys Spooky,' he croaked.
The late king nodded. 'I'm going in to have a look. You two live ones, you come with me.'
Dil's face fell.
'Oh, come on, man,' snapped Teppicymon, forcing the door back. 'Look, I'm not frightened. Show a bit of backbone. Everyone else is.'
'But we'll need some light,' protested Dil.
The nearest mummies lurched back sharply as Gern timidly took a tinderbox out of his pocket.
'We'll need something to burn,' said Dil. The mummies shuffled further back, muttering.
'There's torches in here,' said Teppicymon, his voice slightly muffled. 'And you can keep them away from me, lad.'
It was a small pyramid, mazeless, without traps, just a stone passage leading upwards. Tremulously, expecting at any moment to see unnamed terrors leap out at them, the embalmers followed the king into a small, square chamber that smelled of sand. The roof was black with soot.
There was no sarcophagus within, no mummy case, no terror named or nameless. The centre of the floor was occupied by a raised block, with a blanket and a pillow on it.
Neither of them looked particularly old. It was almost disappointing.
Gern craned to look around.
'Quite nice, really,' he said. 'Comfy.'
'No,' said Dil.
'Hey, master king, look here,' said Gern, trotting over to one of the walls. 'Look. Someone's been scratching things. Look, all little lines all over the wall.'
'And this wall,' said the king, 'and the floor. Someone's been counting. Every ten have been crossed through, you see. Someone's been counting things. Lots of things.' He stood back.
'What things?' said Dil, looking behind him.
'Very strange,' said the king. He leaned forward. 'You can barely make out the inscriptions underneath.'
'Can you read it, king?' said Gern, showing what Dil considered to be unnecessary enthusiasm.
'No. It's one of the really ancient dialects. Can't make out a blessed hieroglyph,' said Teppicymon. 'I shouldn't think there's a single person alive today who can read it.'
'That's a shame,' said Gern.
'True enough,' said the king, and sighed. They stood in gloomy silence.
'So perhaps we could ask one of the dead ones?' said Gern.
'Er. Gern,' said Dil, backing away.
The king slapped the apprentice on the back, pitching him forward.
'Damn clever idea!' he said. 'We'll just go and get one of the real early ancestors. Oh.' He sagged. 'That's no good. No-one will be able to understand them-'
'Gern!' said Dil, his eyes growing wider.
'No, it's all right, king,' said Gern, enjoying the new-found freedom of thought, 'because, the reason being, everyone understands someone, all we have to do is sort them out.'
'Bright lad. Bright lad,' said the king.
'Gern!'
They both looked at him in astonishment.
'You all right, master?' said Gern. 'You've gone all white.'
'The t-' stuttered Dil, rigid with terror.
'The what, master?'
'The t— look at the t-'
'He ought to have a lie down,' said the king. 'I know his sort. The artistic type. Highly strung.'
Dil took a deep breath.
'Look at the sodding torch, Gern!' he shouted.
They looked.
Without any fuss, turning its black ashes into dry straw, the torch was burning backwards.
The Old Kingdom lay stretched out before Teppic, and it was unreal.
He looked at You Bastard, who had stuck his muzzle in a wayside spring and was making a noise like the last drop in the milkshake glass27. You Bastard looked real enough. There's nothing like a camel for looking really solid. But the landscape had an uncertain quality, as if it hadn't quite made up its mind to be there or not.
Except for the Great Pyramid. It squatted in the middle distance as real as the pin that nails a butterfly to a board. It was contriving to look extremely solid, as though it was sucking all the solidity out of the landscape into itself.
Well, he was here. Wherever here was.
How did you kill a pyramid?
And what would happen if you did?
He was working on the hypothesis that everything would snap back into place. Into the Old Kingdom's pool of recirculated time.
He watched the gods for a while, wondering what the hell they were, and how it didn't seem to matter. They looked no more real than the land over which they strode, about incomprehensible errands of their own. The world was no more than a dream. Teppic felt incapable of surprise. If seven fat cows had wandered by, he wouldn't have given them a second glance.
He remounted You Bastard and rode him, sloshing gently, down the road. The fields on either side had a devastated look.
The sun was finally sinking; the gods of night and evening were prevailing over the daylight gods, but it had been a long struggle and, when you thought about all the things that would happen to it now — eaten by goddesses, carried on boats under the world, and so on — it was an odds-on chance that it wouldn't be seen again.
No-one was visible as he rode into the stable yard. You Bastard padded sedately to his stall and pulled delicately at a wisp of hay. He'd thought of something interesting about bivariant distributions.
Teppic patted him on the flank, raising another cloud, and walked up the wide steps that led to the palace proper. Still there were no guards, no servants. No living soul.
He slipped into his own palace like a thief in the day, and found his way to Dil's workshop. It was empty, and looked as though a robber with very peculiar tastes had recently been at work in there. The throne room smelled like a kitchen, and by the looks of it the cooks had fled in a hurry.
The gold mask of the kings of Djelibeybi, slightly buckled out of shape, had rolled into a corner. He picked it up and, on a suspicion, scratched it with one of his knives. The gold peeled away, exposing a silver-grey gleam.
He'd suspected that. There simply wasn't that much gold around. The mask felt as heavy as lead because, well, it was lead. He wondered if it had ever been all gold, and which ancestor had done it, and how many pyramids it had paid for. It was probably very symbolic of something or other. Perhaps not even symbolic of anything. Just symbolic, all by itself.
One of the sacred cats was hiding under the throne. It flattened its ears and spat at Teppic as he reached down to pat it. That much hadn't changed, at least.
Still no people. He padded across to the balcony.
And there the people were, a great silent mass, staring across the river in the fading, leaden light. As Teppic watched a flotilla of boats and ferries set out from the near bank.
We ought to have been building bridges, he thought. But we said that would be shackling the river.
He dropped lightly over the balustrade on to the packed earth and walked down to the crowd.
And the full force of its belief scythed into him.
The people of Djelibeybi might have had conflicting ideas about their gods, but their belief in their kings had been unswerving for thousands of years. To Teppic it was like walking into a vat of alcohol. He felt it pouring into him until his fingertips crackled, rising up through his body until it gushed into his brain, bringing not omnipotence but the feeling of omnipotence, the very strong sensation that while he didn't actually know everything, he would do soon and had done once.
It had been like this back in Ankh, when the divinity had hooked him. But that had been just a flicker. Now it had the solid power of real belief behind it.
He looked down at a rustling below him, and saw green shoots springing out of the dry sand around his feet.
Bloody hell, he thought. I really am a god.
This could be very embarrassing.
He shouldered his way through the press of people until he reached the riverbank and stood there in a thickening clump of corn. As the crowd caught on, those nearest fell to their knees, and a circle of reverentially collapsing people spread out from Teppic like ripples.
But I never wanted this! I just wanted to help people live more happily, with plumbing. I wanted something done about rundown inner-city areas. I just wanted to put them at their ease, and ask them how they enjoyed their lives. I thought schools might be a good idea, so they wouldn't fall down and worship someone just because he's got green feet.
And I wanted to do something about the architecture… As the light drained from the sky like steel going cold the pyramid was somehow even bigger than before. If you had to design something to give the very distinct impression of mass, the pyramid was It. There was a crowd of figures around it, unidentifiable in the grey light.
Teppic looked around the prostrate crowd until he saw someone in the uniform of the palace guard.
'You, man, on your feet,' he commanded.
The man gave him a look of dread, but did stagger sheepishly upright.
'What's going on here?'
'O king, who is the lord of-'
'I don't think we have time,' said Teppic. 'I know who I am, I want to know what's happening.'
'O king, we saw the dead walking! The priests have gone to talk to them.'
'The dead walking?'
'Yes, O king.'
'We're talking about not-alive people here, are we?'
'Yes, O king.'
'Oh. Well, thank you. That was very succinct. Not informative, but succinct. Are there any boats around?'
'The priests took them all, O king.'
Teppic could see that this was true. The jetties near the palace were usually thronged with boats, and now they were all empty. As he stared at the water it grew two eyes and a long snout, to remind him that swimming the Djel was as feasible as nailing fog to the wall.
He stared at the crowd. Every person was watching him expectantly, convinced that he would know what to do next.
He turned back to the river, extended his hands in front of him, pressed them together and then opened them gently. There was a damp sucking noise, and the waters of the Djel parted in front of him. There was a sigh from the crowd, but their astonishment was nothing to the surprise of a dozen or so crocodiles, who were left trying to swim in ten feet of air.
Teppic ran down the bank and over the heavy mud, dodging to avoid the tails that slashed wildly at him as the reptiles dropped heavily on to the riverbed.
The Djel loomed up as two khaki walls, so that he was running along a damp and shadowy alley. Here and there were fragments of bones, old shields, bits of spear, the ribs of boats. He leapt and jinked around the debris of centuries.
Ahead of him a big bull crocodile propelled itself dreamily out of the wall of water, flailed madly in mid-air, and flopped into the ooze. Teppic trod heavily on its snout and plunged on.
Behind him a few of the quicker citizens, seeing the dazed creatures below them, began to look for stones. The crocodiles had been undisputed masters of the river since primordial times, but if it was possible to do a little catching-up in the space of a few minutes, it was certainly worth a try.
The sound of the monsters of the river beginning the long journey to handbaghood broke out behind Teppic as he sloshed up the far bank.
A line of ancestors stretched across the chamber, down the dark passageway, and out into the sand. It was filled with whispers going in both directions, a dry sound, like the wind blowing through old paper.
Dil lay on the sand, with Gern flapping a cloth in his face.
'Wha' they doing?' he murmured.
'Reading the inscription,' said Gern. 'You ought to see it, master! The one doing the reading, he's practically a-'
'Yes, yes, all right,' said Dil, struggling up.
'He's more than six thousand years old! And his grandson's listening to him, and telling his grandson, and he's telling his gra-'
'Yes, yes, all-'
'"And Khuft-too-said-Unto-the-First, What-may-We-Give-Unto— You, Who-Has-Taught-Us-the-Right-Ways»,' said Teppicymon28, who was at the end of the line. '"And-the-First-Spake, and-This-He-Spake, Build— for-Me-a-Pyramid, That-I-May-Rest, and-Build-it-of-These— Dimensions, That-it-Be-Proper. And-Thus-It-Was-Done, and-The-Name— of-the-First-was . . ."'
But there was no name. It was just a babble of raised voices, arguments, ancient cursewords, spreading along the line of desiccated ancestors like a spark along a powder trail. Until it reached Teppicymon, who exploded.
The Ephebian sergeant, quietly perspiring in the shade, saw what he had been half expecting and wholly dreading. There was a column of dust on the opposite horizon. The Tsorteans' main force was getting there first.
He stood up, nodded professionally to his counterpart across the way, and looked at the double handful of men under his command.
'I need a messenger to take, er, a message back to the city,' he said. A forest of hands shot up. The sergeant sighed, and selected young Autocue, who he knew was missing his mum.
'Run like the wind,' he said. 'Although I expect you won't need telling, will you? And then . . . and then . .
He stood with his lips moving silently, while the sun scoured the rocks of the hot, narrow pass and a few insects buzzed in the scrub bushes. His education hadn't included a course in Famous Last Words.
He raised his eyes in the direction of home.
'Go, tell the Ephebians-' he began.
The soldiers waited.
'What?' said Autocue after a while. 'Go and tell them what?'
The sergeant relaxed, like air being let out of a balloon.
'Go and tell them, what kept you?' he said. On the near horizon another column of dust was advancing.
This was more like it. If there was going to be a massacre, then it ought to be shared by both sides.
The city of the dead lay before Teppic. After Ankh-Morpork, which was almost its direct opposite (in Ankh, even the bedding was alive) it was probably the biggest city on the Disc; its streets were the finest, its architecture the most majestic and awe— inspiring.
In population terms the necropolis outstripped the other cities of the Old Kingdom, but its people didn't get out much and there was nothing to do on Saturday nights.
Until now.
Now it thronged:
Teppic watched from the top of a wind-etched obelisk as the grey and brown, and here and there somewhat greenish, armies of the departed passed beneath him. The kings had been democratic. After the pyramids had been emptied gangs of them had turned their attention to the lesser tombs, and now the necropolis really did have its tradesmen, its nobles and even its artisans. Not that there was, by and large, any way of telling the difference.
They were, to a corpse, heading for the Great Pyramid. It loomed like a carbuncle over the lesser, older buildings. And they all seemed very angry about something.
Teppic dropped lightly on to the wide flat roof of a mastaba, jogged to its far end, cleared the gap on to an ornamental sphinx
— not without a moment's worry, but this one seemed inert enough — and from there it was but the throw of a grapnel to one of the lower storeys of a step pyramid. The long light of the contentious sun lanced across the spent landscape as he leapt from monument to monument, zig-zagging high above the shuffling army.
Behind him shoots appeared briefly in the ancient stone, cracking it a little, and then withered and died.
This, said his blood as it tingled around his body, is what you trained for. Even Mericet couldn't mark you down for this. Speeding in the shadows above a silent city, running like a cat, finding handholds that would have perplexed a gecko — and, at the destination, a victim.
True, it was a billion tons of pyramid, and hitherto the largest client of an inhumation had been Patricio, the 23-stone Despot of Quirm.
A monumental needle recording in bas-relief the achievements of a king four thousand years ago, and which would have been more pertinent if the wind-driven sand hadn't long ago eroded his name, provided a handy ladder which needed only an expertly thrown grapnel from its top, lodging in the outstretched fingers of a forgotten monarch, to allow him a long, gentle arc on to the roof of a tomb.
Running, climbing and swinging, hastily hammering crampons in the memorials of the dead, Teppic went forth.
Pinpoints of firelight among the limestone pricked out the lines of the opposing armies. Deep and stylised though the enmity was between the two empires, they both abided by the ancient tradition that warfare wasn't undertaken at night, during harvest or when wet. It was important enough to save up for special occasions. Going at it hammer and tongs just reduced the whole thing to a farce.
In the twilight on both sides of the line came the busy sound of advanced woodwork in progress.
It's said that generals are always ready to fight the last War over again. It had been thousands of years since the last war between Tsort and Ephebe, but generals have long memories and this time they were ready for it.
On both sides of the line, wooden horses were taking shape.
'It's gone,' said Ptaclusp IIb, slithering back down the pile of rubble.