'Norr.'
'Your majesty looks a little peaky this morning, sire,' said Dios. He sat down on the bench with the carved cheetahs on either end. Sitting down in the presence of the king, except on ceremonial occasions, was not something that was allowed. It did, however, mean that he could squint under Teppic's low bed.
Dios was rattled. Despite the aches and the lack of sleep, Teppic felt oddly elated. He wiped his chin.
'It's the bed,' he said. 'I think I have mentioned it. Mattresses, you know. They have feathers in them. If the concept is unfamiliar, ask the pirates of Khali. Half of them must be sleeping on goosefeather mattresses by now.'
'His majesty is pleased to joke,' said Dios.
Teppic knew he shouldn't push it any further, but he did so anyway.
'Something wrong, Dios?' he said.
'A miscreant broke into the palace last night. The girl Ptraci is missing.'
'That is very disturbing.'
'Yes, sire.'
'Probably a suitor or a swain or something.'
Dios's face was like stone. 'Possibly, sire.
'The sacred crocodiles will be going hungry, then.' But not for long, Teppic thought. Walk to the end of any of the little jetties down by the bank, let your shadow fall on the river, and the mud-yellow water would become, by magic, mud-yellow bodies. They looked like large, sodden logs, the main difference being that logs don't open at one end and bite your legs off. The sacred crocodiles of the Djel were the kingdom's garbage disposal, river patrol and occasional morgue.
They couldn't simply be called big. If one of the huge bulls ever drifted sideways on to the current, he'd dam the river.
The barber tiptoed out. A couple of body servants tiptoed in.
'I anticipated your majesty's natural reaction, sire,' Dios continued, like the drip of water in deep limestone caverns.
'Jolly good,' said Teppic, inspecting the clothes for the day. 'What was it, exactly?'
'A detailed search of the palace, room by room.'
'Absolutely. Carry on, Dios.'
My face is perfectly open, he told himself. I haven't twitched a muscle out of place. I know I haven't. He can read me like a stele. I can outstare him.
'Thank you, sire.'
'I imagine they'll be miles away by now,' said Teppic. 'Whoever they were. She was only a handmaiden, wasn't she?'
'It is unthinkable that anyone could disobey your judgements! There is no-one in the kingdom that would dare to! Their souls would be forfeit! They will be hunted down, sire! Hunted down and destroyed!'
The servants cowered behind Teppic. This wasn't mere anger. This was wrath. Real, old-time, vintage wrath. And waxing? It waxed like a hatful of moons.
'Are you feeling all right, Dios?'
Dios had turned to look out across the river. The Great Pyramid was almost complete. The sight of it seemed to calm him down or, at least, stabilise him on some new mental plateau.
'Yes, sire,' he said. 'Thank you.' He breathed deeply. 'Tomorrow, sire, you are pleased to witness the capping of the pyramid. A momentous occasion. Of course, it will be some time before the interior chambers are completed.'
'Fine. Fine. And this morning, I think, I should like to visit my father.'
'I am sure the late king will be pleased to see you, sire. It is your wish that I should accompany you.'
'Oh.'
It's a fact as immutable as the Third Law of Sod that there is no such thing as a good Grand Vizier. A predilection to cackle and plot is apparently part of the job spec.
High priests tend to get put in the same category. They have to face the implied assumption that no sooner do they get the funny hat than they're issuing strange orders, e.g., princesses tied to rocks for itinerant sea monsters and throwing little babies in the sea.
This is a gross slander. Throughout the history of the Disc most high priests have been serious, pious and conscientious men who have done their best to interpret the wishes of the gods, sometimes disembowelling or flaying alive hundreds of people in a day in order to make sure they're getting it absolutely right.
King Teppicymon XXVII's casket lay in state. Crafted it was of foryphy, smaradgine, skelsa and delphinet, inlaid it was with pink jade and shode, perfumed and fumed it was with many rare resins and perfumes It looked very impressive but, the king considered, it wasn't worth dying for. He gave up and wandered across the courtyard.
A new player had entered the drama of his death.
Grinjer, the maker of models.
He'd always wondered about the models. Even a humble farmer expected to be buried with a selection of crafted livestock, which would somehow become real in the netherworld. Many a man made do with one cow like a toast rack in this world in order to afford a pedigree herd in the next Nobles and kings got the complete set, including model carts, houses, boats and anything else too big or inconvenient to fit in the tomb. Once on the other side, they'd somehow become the genuine article.
The king frowned. When he was alive he'd known that it was true. Not doubted it for a moment Grinjer stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as, with great care, he tweezered a tiny oar to a perfect 1/80th scale river trireme. Every flat surface in his corner of the workshop was stacked with midget animals and artifacts; some of his more impressive ones hung from wires on the ceiling.
The king had already ascertained from overheard conversation that Grinjer was twenty-six, couldn't find anything to stop the inexorable advance of his acne, and lived at home with his mother. Where, in the evenings, he made models. Deep in the duffel coat of his mind he hoped one day to find a nice girl who would understand the absolute importance of getting every detail right on a ceremonial six-wheeled ox cart, and who would hold his glue-pot, and always be ready with a willing thumb whenever anything needed firm pressure until the paste dried.
He was aware of trumpets and general excitement behind him. He ignored it. There always seemed to be a lot of fuss these days. In his experience it was always about trivial things. People just didn't have their priorities right. He'd been waiting two months for a few ounces of gum varneti, and it didn't seem to bother anyone. He screwed his eyeglass into a more comfortable position and slotted a minute steering oar into place.
Someone was standing next to him. Well, they could make themselves useful .
'Could you just put your finger here,' he said, without glancing around. 'Just for a minute, until the glue sets.'
There seemed to be a sudden drop in temperature. He looked up into a smiling golden mask. Over its shoulder Dios's face was shading, in Grinjer's expert opinion, from No.13 (Pale Flesh) to No.37 (Sunset Purple, Gloss).
'Oh,' he said.
'It's very good,' said Teppic. 'What is it?'
Grinjer blinked at him. Then he blinked at the boat.
'It's an eighty-foot Khali-fashion river trireme with fishtail spear deck and ramming prow,' he said automatically.
He got the impression that more was expected of him. He cast around for something suitable.
'It's got more than five hundred bits,' he added. 'Every plank on the deck is individually cut, look.'
'Fascinating,' said Teppic. 'Well, I won't hold you up. Carry on the good work.'
'The sail really unfurls,' said Grinjer. 'See, if you pull this thread, the-'
The mask had moved. Dios was there instead. He gave Grinjer a short glare which indicated that more would be heard about this later on, and hurried after the king. So did the ghost of Teppicymon XXVII.
Teppic's eyes swivelled behind the mask. There was the open doorway into the room of caskets. He could just make out the one containing Ptraci; the wedge of wood was still under the lid.
'Our father, however, is over here. Sire,' said Dios. He could move as silently as a ghost.
'Oh. Yes.' Teppic hesitated and then crossed to the big case on its trestles. He stared down at it for some time. The gilded face on the lid looked like every other mask.
'A very good likeness, sire,' prompted Dios.
'Ye-ess,' said Teppic. 'I suppose so. He definitely looks happier. I suppose.'
'Hallo, my boy,' said the king. He knew that no-one could hear him, but he felt happier talking to them all the same. It was better than talking to himself. He was going to have more than enough time for that.
'I think it brings out the best in him, O commander of the heavens,' said the head sculptor.
'Makes me look like a constipated wax dolly.'
Teppic cocked his head on one side.
'Yes,' he said, uncertainly. 'Yes. Er. Well done.'
He half-turned to look through the doorway again.
Dios nodded to the guards on either side of the passageway.
'If you will excuse me, sire,' he said urbanely.
'Hmm?'
'The guards will continue their search.'
'Right. Oh-'
Dios bore down on Ptraci's casket, flanked by guards. He gripped the lid, thrust it backwards, and said, 'Behold! What do we find?'
Dil and Gern joined him. They looked inside.
'Wood shavings,' said Dil.
Gern sniffed. 'They smell nice, though,' he said.
Dios's fingers drummed on the lid. Teppic had never seen him at a loss before. The man actually started tapping the sides of the case, apparently seeking any hidden panels.
He closed the lid carefully and looked blankly at Teppic, who for the first time was very glad that the mask didn't reveal his expression.
'She's not in there,' said the old king. 'She got out for a call of nature when the men went to have their breakfast.'
She must have climbed out, Teppic told himself. So where is she now?
Dios scanned the room carefully and then, after swinging slowly backwards and forwards like a compass needle, his eyes fixed on the king's mummy case. It was big. It was roomy. There was a certain inevitability about it.
He crossed the room in a couple of strides and heaved it open.
'Don't bother to knock,' the king grumbled. 'It's not as if I'm going anywhere.'
Teppic risked a look. The mummy of the king was quite alone.
'Are you sure you're feeling all right, Dios?' he said.
'Yes, sire. We cannot be too careful, sire. Clearly they are not here, sire.'
'You look as if you could do with a breath of fresh air,' said Teppic, upbraiding himself for doing this but doing it, nevertheless. Dios at a loss was an awe-inspiring sight, and slightly disconcerting; it made one instinctively fear for the stability of things.
'Yes, sire. Thank you, sire.'
'Have a sit down and someone will bring you a glass of water. And then we will go and inspect the pyramid.'
Dios sat down.
There was a terrible little splintering noise.
'He's sat on the boat,' said the king. 'First humorous thing I've ever seen him do.'
The pyramid gave a new meaning to the word 'massive'. It bent the landscape around it. It seemed to Teppic that its very weight was deforming the shape of things, stretching the kingdom like a lead ball on a rubber sheet.
He knew that was a ridiculous idea. Big though the pyramid was, it was tiny compared to, say, a mountain.
But big, very big, compared to anything else. Anyway, mountains were meant to be big, the fabric of the universe was used to the idea. The pyramid was a made thing, and much bigger than a made thing ought to be.
It was also very cold. The black marble of its sides was shining white with frost in the roasting afternoon sun. He was foolish enough to touch it and left a layer of skin on the surface.
'It's freezing!'
'It's storing already, O breath of the river,' said Ptaclusp, who was sweating. 'It's the wossname, the boundary effect.'
'I note that you have ceased work on the burial chambers,' said Dios.
'The men . . . the temperature . . . boundary effects a bit too much to risk . . .' muttered Ptaclusp. 'Er.'
Teppic looked from one to the other.
'What's the matter?' he said. 'Are there problems?'
'Er,' said Ptaclusp.
'You're way ahead of schedule. Marvellous work,' said Teppic. 'You've put a tremendous amount of labour on the job.'
'Er. Yes. Only.'
There was silence except for the distant sounds of men at work, and the faint noise of the air sizzling where it touched the pyramid.
'It's bound to be all right when we get the capstone on, the pyramid builder managed eventually. 'Once it's flaring properly, no problem. Er.'
He indicated the electrum capstone. It was surprisingly small, only a foot or so across, and rested on a couple of trestles.
'We should be able to put it on tomorrow,' said Ptaclusp. 'Would your sire still be honouring us with the capping-out ceremony?' In his nervousness he gripped the hem of his robe and began to twist it. 'There's drinks,' he stuttered. 'And a silver trowel that you can take away with you. Everyone shouts hurrah and throws their hats in the air.
'Certainly,' said Dios. 'It will be an honour.'
'And for us too, your sire,' said Ptaclusp loyally.
'I meant for you,' said the high priest. He turned to the wide courtyard between the base of the pyramid and the river, which was lined with statues and stelae commemorating King Teppicymon's mighty deeds18, and pointed.
'And you can get rid of that,' he added.
Ptaclusp gave him a look of unhappy innocence.
'That statue,' said Dios, 'is what I am referring to., 'Oh. Ah. Well, we thought once you saw it in place, you see, in the right light, and what with Hat the Vulture-Headed God being very-'
'It goes,' said Dios.
'Right you are, your reverence,' said Ptaclusp miserably. It was, right now, the least of his problems, but on top of everything else he was beginning to think that the statue was following him around.
Dios leaned closer.
'You haven't seen a young woman anywhere on the site, have you?' he demanded.
'No women on the site, my lord,' said Ptaclusp. 'Very bad luck.'
'This one was provocatively dressed,' the high priest said.
'No, no women.'
'The palace is not far, you see. There must be many places to hide over here,' Dios continued, insistently.
Ptaclusp swallowed. He knew that, all right. Whatever had possessed him.
'I assure you, your reverence,' he said.
Dios gave him a scowl, and then turned to where Teppic, as it turned out, had been.
'Please ask him not to shake hands with anybody,' said the builder, as Dios hurried after the distant glint of sunlight on gold. The king still didn't seem to be able to get alongside the idea that the last thing the people wanted was a man of the people. Those workers who couldn't get out of the way in time were thrusting their hands behind their back.
Alone now, Ptaclusp fanned himself and staggered into the shade of his tent.
Where, waiting to see him, were Ptaclusp IIa, Ptaclusp IIa, Ptaclusp IIa and Ptaclusp IIa. Ptaclusp always felt uneasy in the presence of accountants, and four of them together was very bad, especially when they were all the same person. Three Ptaclusp IIbs were there as well; the other two, unless it was three by now, were out on the site.
He waved his hands in a conciliatory way.
'All right, all right,' he said. 'What are today's problems?'
One of the IIas pulled a stack of wax tablets towards him 'Have you any idea, father,' he began, employing that thin; razor-edged voice that accountants use to preface something unexpected and very expensive, 'what calculus is?'
'You tell me,' said Ptaclusp, sagging on to a stool.
'It's what I've had to invent to deal with the wages bill, father,' said another IIa.
'I thought that was algebra?' said Ptaclusp.
'We passed algebra last week,' said a third IIa. 'It's calculus now. I've had to loop myself another four times to work on it, and there's three of me working on-' he glanced at his brothers — 'quantum accountancy.'
'What's that for?' said his father wearily.
'Next week.' The leading accountant glared at the top slab. 'For example,' he said. 'You know Rthur the fresco painter?'
'What about him?'
'He — that is, they — have put in a bill for two years' work.'
'Oh.'
'They said they did it on Tuesday. On account of how time is fractal in nature, they said.'
'They said that?' said Ptaclusp.
'It's amazing what they pick up,' said one of the accountants, glaring at the paracosmic architects.
Ptaclusp hesitated. 'How many of them are there?'
'How should we know? We know there were fifty-three. Then he went critical. We've certainly seen him around a lot.' Two of the IIas sat back and steepled their fingers, always a bad sign in anyone having anything to do with money. 'The problem is,' one of them continued, 'that after the initial enthusiasm a lot of the workers looped themselves unofficially so that they could stay at home and send themselves out to work.'
'But that's ridiculous,' Ptaclusp protested weakly. 'They're not different people, they're just doing it to themselves.'
'That's never stopped anyone, father,' said IIa. 'How many men have stopped drinking themselves stupid at the age of twenty to save a stranger dying of liver failure at forty?'
There was silence while they tried to work this one out.
'A stranger-?' said Ptaclusp uncertainly.
'I mean himself, when older,' snapped IIa. 'That was philosophy,' he added.
'One of the masons beat himself up yesterday,' said one of the IIbs gloomily. 'He was fighting with himself over his wife. Now he's going mad because he doesn't know whether it's an earlier version of him or someone he hasn't been yet. He's afraid he's going to creep up on him. There's worse than that, too. Dad, we're paying forty thousand people, and we're only employing two thousand.'
'It's going to bankrupt us, that's what you're going to say,' said Ptaclusp. 'I know. It's all my fault. I just wanted something to hand on to you, you know. I didn't expect all this. It seemed too easy to start with.'
One of the IIas cleared his throat.
'It's . . . uh . . . not quite as bad as all that,' he said quietly.
'What do you mean?'
The accountant laid a dozen copper coins on the table.
'Well, er,' he said. 'You see, eh, it occurred to me, since there's all this movement in time, that it's not just people who can be looped, and, er, look, you see these coins?'
One coin vanished.
'They're all the same coin, aren't they,' said one of his brothers.
'Well, yes,' said the IIa, very embarrassed, because interfering with the divine flow of money was alien to his personal religion. 'The same coin at five minute intervals.'
'And you're using this trick to pay the men?' said Ptaclusp dully.
'It's not a trick! I give them the money,' said IIa primly. 'What happens to it afterwards isn't my responsibility, is it?'
'I don't like any of this,' said his father.
'Don't worry. It all evens out in the end,' said one of the IIas. 'Everyone gets what's coming to them.'
'Yes. That's what I'm afraid of,' said Ptaclusp.
'It's just a way of letting your money work for you,' said another son. 'It's probably quantum.'
'Oh, good,' said Ptaclusp weakly.
'We'll get the block on tonight, don't worry,' said one of the IIbs. 'After it's flared the power off we can all settle down.'
'I told the king we'd do it tomorrow.' The Ptaclusp IIbs went pale in unison. Despite the heat, it suddenly seemed a lot colder in the tent.
'Tonight, father,' said one of them. 'Surely you mean tonight?
'Tomorrow,' said Ptaclusp, firmly. 'I've arranged an awning and people throwing lotus blossom. There's going to be a band. Tocsins and trumpets and tinkling cymbals. And speeches and a meat tea afterwards. That's the way we've always done it. Attracts new customers. They like to have a look round.'
'Father, you've seen the way it soaks up. . . you've seen the frost . .
'Let it soak. We Ptaclusps don't go around capping off pyramids as though we were finishing off a garden wall. We don't knock off like a wossname in the night. People expect a ceremony.
'But-'
'I'm not listening. I've listened to too much of this new— fangled stuff. Tomorrow. I've had the bronze plaque made, and the velvet curtains and everything.'
One of the IIas shrugged. 'It's no good arguing with him,' he said. 'I'm from three hours ahead. I remember this meeting. We couldn't change his mind.'
'I'm from two hours ahead,' said one of his clones. 'I remember you saying that, too.'
Beyond the walls of the tent, the pyramid sizzled with accumulated time.
There is nothing mystical about the power of pyramids.
Pyramids are dams in the stream of time. Correctly shaped and orientated, with the proper paracosmic measurements correctly plumbed in, the temporal potential of the great mass of stone can be diverted to accelerate or reverse time over a very small area, in the same way that a hydraulic ram can be induced to pump water against the flow.
The original builders, who were of course ancients and therefore wise, knew this very well and the whole point of a correctly-built pyramid was to achieve absolute null time in the central chamber so that a dying king, tucked up there, would indeed live forever — or at least, never actually die. The time that should have passed in the chamber was stored in the bulk of the pyramid and allowed to flare off once every twenty-four hours.
After a few aeons people forgot this and thought you could achieve the same effect by a) ritual b) pickling people and c) storing their soft inner bits in jars.
This seldom works.
And so the art of pyramid tuning was lost, and all the knowledge became a handful of misunderstood rules and hazy recollections. The ancients were far too wise to build very big pyramids. They could cause very strange things, things that would make mere fluctuations in time look tiny by comparison.
By the way, contrary to popular opinion pyramids don't sharpen razor blades. They just take them back to when they weren't blunt. It's probably because of quantum.
Teppic lay on the strata of his bed, listening intently.
There were two guards outside the door, and another two on the balcony outside, and — he was impressed at Dios's forethought
— one on the roof. He could hear them trying to make no noise.
He'd hardly been able to protest. If black-clad miscreants were getting into the palace, then the person of the king had to be protected. It was undeniable.
He slipped off the solid mattress and glided through the twilight to the statue of Bast the Cat-Headed God in the corner, twisted off the head, and pulled out his assassin's costume. He dressed quickly, cursing the lack of mirrors, and then padded across and lurked behind a pillar.
The only problem, as far as he could see, was not laughing. Being a soldier in Djelibeybi was not a high risk job. There was never a hint of internal rebellion and, since either neighbour could crush the kingdom instantly by force of arms, there was no real point in selecting keen and belligerent warriors. In fact, the last thing the priesthood wanted was enthusiastic soldiers. Enthusiastic soldiers with no fighting to do soon get bored and start thinking dangerous thoughts, like how much better they could run the country.
Instead the job attracted big, solid men, the kind of men who could stand stock still for hours at a time without getting bored, men with the build of an ox and the mental processes to match. Excellent bladder control was also desirable.
He stepped out on to the balcony.
Teppic had learned how not to move stealthily. Millions of years of being eaten by creatures that know how to move stealthily has made humanity very good at spotting stealthy movement. Nor was it enough to make no noise, because little moving patches of silence always aroused suspicion. The trick was to glide through the night with a quiet reassurance, just like the air did.
There was a guard standing just outside the room. Teppic drifted past him and climbed carefully up the wall. It had been decorated with a complex bas relief of the triumphs of past monarchs, so Teppic used his family to give him a leg up.
The breeze was blowing off the desert as he swung his legs over the parapet and walked silently across the roof, which was still hot underfoot. The air had a recently-cooked smell, tinted with spice.
It was a strange feeling, to be creeping across the roof of your own palace, trying to avoid your own guards, engaged on a mission in direct contravention of your own decree and knowing that if you were caught you would have yourself thrown to the sacred crocodiles. After all, he'd apparently already instructed that he was to be shown no mercy if he was captured.
Somehow it added an extra thrill.
There was freedom of a sort up here on the rooftops, the only kind of freedom available to a king of the valley. It occurred to Teppic that the landless peasants down on the delta had more freedom than he did, although the seditious and non-kingly side of him said, yes, freedom to catch any diseases of their choice, starve as much as they wanted, and die of whatever dreadful ague took their fancy. But freedom, of a sort.
A faint noise in the huge silence of the night drew him to the riverward edge of the roof. The Djel sprawled in the moonlight, broad and oily.
There was a boat in midstream, heading back from the far bank and the necropolis. There was no mistaking the figure at the oars. The flarelight gleamed off his bald head.
One day, Teppic thought, I'll follow him. I'll find out what it is he does over there.
If he goes over in daylight, of course.
In daylight the necropolis was merely gloomy, as though the whole universe had shut down for early-closing. He'd even explored it, wandering through streets and alleys that contrived to be still and dusty no matter what the weather was on the other, the living side of the water. There was always a breathless feel about it, which was probably not to be wondered at. Assassins liked the night on general principles, but the night of the necropolis was something else. Or rather, it was the same thing, but a lot more of it. Besides, it was the only city anywhere on the Disc where an assassin couldn't find employment.
He reached the light well that opened on the embalmers' courtyard and peered down. A moment later he landed lightly on the floor and slipped into the room of cases.
'Hallo, lad.'
Teppic opened the lid of the case. It was still empty.
'She's in one of the ones at the back,' said the king. 'Never had much of a sense of direction.'
It was a great big palace. Teppic could barely find his way around it by daylight. He considered his chances of carrying out a search in pitch darkness.
'It's a family trait, you know. Your grandad had to have Left and Right painted on his sandals, it was that bad. It's lucky for you that you take after your mother in that respect.'
It was strange. She didn't talk, she chattered. She didn't seem to be able to hold a simple thought in her head for more than about ten seconds. Her brain appeared to be wired directly to her mouth, so that as soon as a thought entered her head she spoke it out loud. Compared to the ladies he had met at soirees in Ankh, who delighted in entertaining young assassins and fed them expensive delicacies and talked to them of high and delicate matters while their eyes sparkled like carborundum drills and their lips began to glisten compared to them, she was as empty as a, as a, well, as an empty thing. Nevertheless, he found he desperately wanted to find her. The sheer undemandingness of her was like a drug. The memory of her bosom was quite beside the point.
'I'm glad you've come back for her,' said the king vaguely.
'She's your sister, you know. Half sister, that is. Sometimes I wish I'd married her mother, but you see she wasn't royal. Very bright woman, her mother.'
Teppic listened hard. There it was again: a faint breathing noise, only heard at all because of the deep silence of the night. He worked his way to the back of the room, listened again, and lifted the lid of a case.
Ptraci was curled up on the bottom, fast asleep with her head on her arm.
He leaned the lid carefully against the wall and touched her hair. She muttered something in her sleep, and settled into a more comfortable position.
'Er, I think you'd better wake up,' he whispered.
She changed position again and muttered something like: 'Wstflgl.'
Teppic hesitated. Neither his tutors nor Dios had prepared him for this. He knew at least seventy different ways of killing a sleeping person, but none to wake them up first.
He prodded her in what looked like the least embarrassing area of her skin. She opened her eyes.
'Oh,' she said. 'It's you.' And she yawned.
'I've come to take you away,' said Teppic. 'You've been asleep all day.'
'I heard someone talking,' she said, stretching in a fashion that made Teppic look away hurriedly. 'It was that priest, the one with the face like a bald eagle. He's really horrible.'
'He is, isn't he?' agreed Teppic, intensely relieved to hear it said.
'So I just kept quiet. And there was the king. The new king.'
'Oh. He was down here, was he?' said Teppic weakly. The bitterness in her voice was like a Number Four stabbing knife in his heart.
'All the girls say he's really weird,' she added, as he helped her out of the case. 'You can touch me, you know. I'm not made of china.'
He steadied her arm, feeling in sore need of a cold bath and a quick run around the rooftops.
'You're an assassin, aren't you,' she went on. 'I remembered that after you'd gone. An assassin from foreign parts. All that black. Have you come to kill the king?'
'I wish I could,' said Teppic. 'He's really beginning to get on my nerves. Look, could you take your bangles off?'
'Why?'
'They make such a noise when you walk.' Even Ptraci's earrings appeared to chime the hours when she moved her head.
'I don't want to,' she said. 'I'd feel naked without them.'
'You're nearly naked with them,' hissed Teppic. 'Please!'
'She can play the dulcimer,' said the ghost of Teppicymon XXVII, apropos of nothing much. 'Not very well, mind you. She's up to page five of «Little Pieces for Tiny Fingers».'
Teppic crept to the passage leading out of the embalming room and listened hard. Silence ruled in the palace, broken only by heavy breathing and the occasional clink behind him as Ptraci stripped herself of her jewellery. He crept back.
'Please hurry up,' he said, 'we haven't got a lot of-'
Ptraci was crying.
'Er,' said Teppic. 'Er.'
'Some of these were presents from my granny,' sniffed Ptraci. 'The old king gave me some, too. These earrings have been in my family for ever such a long time. How would you like it if you had to do it?'
'You see, jewellery isn't just something she wears,' said the ghost of Teppicymon XXVII. 'It's part of who she is.' My word, he added to himself, that's probably an Insight. Why is it so much easier to think when you're dead?
'I don't wear any,' said Teppic.
'You've got all those daggers and things.'
'Well, I need them to do my job.'
'Well then.'
'Look, you don't have to leave them here, you can put them in my pouch,' he said. 'But we must be going. Please!'
'Goodbye,' said the ghost sadly, watching them sneak out to the courtyard. He floated back to his corpse, who wasn't the best of company.
The breeze was stronger when they reached the roof. It was hotter, too, and dry.
Across the river one or two of the older pyramids were already sending up their flares, but they were weak and looked wrong.
'I feel itchy,' said Ptraci. 'What's wrong?'
'It feels like we're in for a thunderstorm,' said Teppic, staring across the river at the Great Pyramid. Its blackness had intensified, so that it was a triangle of deeper darkness in the night. Figures were running around its base like lunatics watching their asylum burn.
'What's a thunderstorm?'
'Very hard to describe,' he said, in a preoccupied voice. 'Can you see what they're doing over there?'
Ptraci squinted across the river.
'They're very busy,' she said.
'Looks more like panic to me.'
A few more pyramids flared, but instead of roaring straight up the flames flickered and lashed backwards and forwards, driven by intangible winds.
Teppic shook himself. 'Come on,' he said. 'Let's get you away from here.'
'I said we should have capped it this evening,' shouted Ptaclusp IIb above the screaming of the pyramid. 'I can't float it up now, the turbulence up there must be terrific!'
The ice of day was boiling off the black marble, which was already warm to the touch. He stared distractedly at the capstone on its cradle and then at his brother, who was still in his nightshirt.
'Where's father?' he said.
'I sent one of us to go and wake him up,' said IIa.
'Who?'
'One of you, actually.'
'Oh.' IIb stared again at the capstone. 'It's not that heavy,' he said. 'Two of us could manhandle it up there.' He gave his brother an enquiring look.
'You must be mad. Send some of the men to do it.'
'They've all run away-'
Down river another pyramid tried to flare, spluttered, and then ejected a screaming, ragged flame that arched across the sky and grounded near the top of the Great Pyramid itself.
'It's interfering with the others now!' shouted IIb. 'Come on. We've got to flare it off, it's the only way!'
About a third of the way up the pyramid's flanks a crackling blue zigzag arced out and struck itself on a stone sphinx. The air above it boiled.
The two brothers slung the stone between them and staggered to the scaffolding, while the dust around them whirled into strange shapes.
'Can you hear something?' said IIb, as they stumbled on to the first platform.
'What, you mean the fabric of time and space being put through the wringer?' said IIa.
The architect gave his brother a look of faint admiration. It was an unusual remark for an accountant. Then his face returned to its previous look of faint terror.
'No, not that,' he said.
'Well, the sound of the very air itself being subjected to horrible tortures?'
'Not that, either,' said IIb, vaguely annoyed. 'I mean the creaking noise.'
Three more pyramids struck their discharges, which fizzled through the roiling clouds overhead and poured into the black marble above them.
'Can't hear anything like that,' said IIa.
'I think it's coming from the pyramid.'
'Well, you can put your ear against it if you like, but I'm not going to.'
The scaffolding swayed in the storm as they eased their way up another ladder, the heavy capstone rocking between them.
'I said we shouldn't do it,' muttered the accountant, as the stone slid gently on to his toes. 'We shouldn't have built this.'
'Just shut up and lift your end, will you?'
And so, one rocking ladder after another, the brothers Ptaclusp eased their bickering way up the flanks of the Great Pyramid, while the lesser tombs along the Djel fired one after another, and the sky streamed with lines of sizzling time.
It was around about this point that the greatest mathematician in the world, lying in cosy flatulence in his stall below the palace, stopped chewing the cud and realised that something very wrong was happening to numbers. All the numbers.
The camel looked along its nose at Teppic. Its expression made it clear that of all the riders in all the world it would least like to ride it, he was right at the top of the list. However, camels look like that at everyone. Camels have a very democratic approach to the human race. They hate every member of it, without making any distinctions for rank or creed.
This one appeared to be chewing soap.
Teppic looked distractedly down the shadowy length of the royal stables, which had once contained a hundred camels. He'd have given the world for a horse, and a moderately-sized continent for a pony. But the stables now held only a handful of rotting war chariots, relics of past glories, an elderly elephant whose presence was a bit of a mystery, and this camel. It looked an extremely inefficient animal. It was going threadbare at the knees.
'Well, this is it,' he said to Ptraci. 'I don't dare try the river during the night. I could try and get you over the border.'
'Is that saddle on right?' said Ptraci. 'It looks awfully funny.'
'It's on an awfully odd creature,' said Teppic. 'How do we climb on to it?'
'I've seen the camel drivers at work,' she replied. 'I think they just hit them very hard with a big stick.'
The camel knelt down and gave her a smug look.
Teppic shrugged, pulled open the doors to the outside world, and stared into the faces of five guards.
He backed away. They advanced. Three of them were holding the heavy Djel bows, which could propel an arrow through a door or turn a charging hippo into three tons of mobile kebab. The guards had never had to fire them at a fellow human, but looked as though they were prepared to entertain the idea.
The guard captain tapped one of the men on the shoulder, and said, 'Go and inform the high priest.'
He glared at Teppic.
'Throw down all your weapons,' he said.
'What, all of them?'
'Yes. All of them.'
'It might take some time,' said Teppic cautiously.
'And keep your hands where I can see them,' the captain added.
'We could be up against a real impasse here,' Teppic ventured. He looked from one guard to another. He knew a variety of methods of unarmed combat, but they all rather relied on the opponent not being about to fire an arrow straight through you as soon as you moved. But he could probably dive sideways, and once he had the cover of the camel stalls he could bide his time And that would leave Ptraci exposed. Besides, he could hardly go around fighting his own guards. That wasn't acceptable behaviour, even for a king.
There was a movement behind the guards and Dios drifted into view, as silent and inevitable as an eclipse of the moon. He was holding a lighted torch, which reflected wild highlights on his bald head.
'Ah,' he said. 'The miscreants are captured. Well done.' He nodded to the captain. 'Throw them to the crocodiles.'
'Dios?' said Teppic, as two of the guards lowered their bows and bore down on him.
'Did you speak?'
'You know who I am, man. Don't be silly.'
The high priest raised the torch.
'You have the advantage of me, boy,' he said. 'Metaphorically speaking.'
'This is not funny,' said Teppic. 'I order you to tell them who I am.'
'As you wish. This assassin,' said Dios, and the voice had the cut and sear of a thermic lance, 'has killed the king.'
'I am the king, damn it,' said Teppic. 'How could I kill myself?'
'We are not stupid,' said Dios. 'These men know the king does not skulk the palace at night, or consort with condemned criminals. All that remains for us to find out is how you disposed of the body.'
His eyes fixed on Teppic's face, and Teppic realised that the high priest was, indeed, truly mad. It was the rare kind of madness caused by being yourself for so long that habits of sanity have etched themselves into the brain. I wonder how old he really is? he thought.
'These assassins are cunning creatures,' said Dios. 'Have a care of him.'
There was a crash beside the priest. Ptraci had tried to throw a camel prod, and missed.
When everyone looked back Teppic had vanished. The guards beside him were busy collapsing slowly to the floor, groaning.
Dios smiled.
'Take the woman,' he snapped, and the captain darted forward and grabbed Ptraci, who hadn't made any attempt to run away. Dios bent down and picked up the prod.
'There are more guards outside,' he said. 'I'm sure you will realise that. It will be in your interests to step forward.'
'Why?' said Teppic, from the shadows. He fumbled in his boot for his blowpipe.
'You will then be thrown to the sacred crocodiles, by order of the king,' said Dios.
'Something to look forward to, eh?' said Teppic, feverishly screwing bits together.
'It would certainly be preferable to many alternatives,' said Dios.
In the darkness Teppic ran his fingers over the little coded knobs on the darts. Most of the really spectacular poisons would have evaporated or dissolved into harmlessness by now, but there were a number of lesser potions designed to give their clients nothing more than a good night's sleep. An assassin might have to work his way to an inhume past a number of alert bodyguards. It was considered impolite to inhume them as well.
'You could let us go,' said Teppic. 'I suspect that's what you want, isn't it? For me to go away and never come back? That suits me fine.'
Dios hesitated.
'You're supposed to say «And let the girl go»,' he said.
'Oh, yes. And that, too,' said Teppic.
'No. I would be failing in my duty to the king,' said Dios.
'For goodness sake, Dios, you know I am the king!'
'No. I have a very clear picture of the king. You are not the king,' said the priest.
Teppic peered over the edge of the camel stall. The camel peered over his shoulder.
And then the world went mad.
All right, madder.
All the pyramids were blazing now, filling the sky with their sooty light as the brothers Ptaclusp struggled to the main working platform.
IIa collapsed on the planking, wheezing like an elderly bellows. A few feet away the sloping side was hot to the touch, and there was no doubt in his mind now that the pyramid was creaking, like a sailing ship in a gale. He had never paid much attention to the actual mechanics as opposed to the cost of pyramid construction, but he was pretty certain that the noise was as wrong as II and II making V.
His brother reached out to touch the stone, but drew his hand back as small sparks flashed around his fingers.
'You can feel the warmth,' he said. 'It's astonishing!'
'Why?'
'Heating up a mass like this. I mean, the sheer tonnage…'
'I don't like it, Two-bee,' IIa quavered. 'Let's just leave the stone here, shall we? I'm sure it'll be all right, and in the morning we can send a gang up here, they'll know exactly what-'
His words were drowned out as another flare crackled across the sky and hit the column of dancing air fifty feet above them. He grabbed part of the scaffolding.
'Sod take this,' he said. 'I'm off.'
'Hang on a minute,' said IIb. 'I mean, what is creaking? Stone can't creak.'
'The whole bloody scaffolding is moving, don't be daft!' He stared goggle-eyed at his brother. 'Tell me it's the scaffolding,' he pleaded.
'No, I'm certain this time. It's coming from inside.' They stared at one another, and then at the rickety ladder leading up to the tip, or to where the tip should be.
'Come on!' said IIb. 'It can't flare off, it's trying to find ways of discharging-'
There was a sound as loud as the groaning of continents.
Teppic felt it. He felt that his skin was several sizes too small. He felt that someone was holding his ears and trying to twist his head off.
He saw the guard captain sag to his knees, fighting to get his helmet off, and he leapt the stall.
'Your majesty looks a little peaky this morning, sire,' said Dios. He sat down on the bench with the carved cheetahs on either end. Sitting down in the presence of the king, except on ceremonial occasions, was not something that was allowed. It did, however, mean that he could squint under Teppic's low bed.
Dios was rattled. Despite the aches and the lack of sleep, Teppic felt oddly elated. He wiped his chin.
'It's the bed,' he said. 'I think I have mentioned it. Mattresses, you know. They have feathers in them. If the concept is unfamiliar, ask the pirates of Khali. Half of them must be sleeping on goosefeather mattresses by now.'
'His majesty is pleased to joke,' said Dios.
Teppic knew he shouldn't push it any further, but he did so anyway.
'Something wrong, Dios?' he said.
'A miscreant broke into the palace last night. The girl Ptraci is missing.'
'That is very disturbing.'
'Yes, sire.'
'Probably a suitor or a swain or something.'
Dios's face was like stone. 'Possibly, sire.
'The sacred crocodiles will be going hungry, then.' But not for long, Teppic thought. Walk to the end of any of the little jetties down by the bank, let your shadow fall on the river, and the mud-yellow water would become, by magic, mud-yellow bodies. They looked like large, sodden logs, the main difference being that logs don't open at one end and bite your legs off. The sacred crocodiles of the Djel were the kingdom's garbage disposal, river patrol and occasional morgue.
They couldn't simply be called big. If one of the huge bulls ever drifted sideways on to the current, he'd dam the river.
The barber tiptoed out. A couple of body servants tiptoed in.
'I anticipated your majesty's natural reaction, sire,' Dios continued, like the drip of water in deep limestone caverns.
'Jolly good,' said Teppic, inspecting the clothes for the day. 'What was it, exactly?'
'A detailed search of the palace, room by room.'
'Absolutely. Carry on, Dios.'
My face is perfectly open, he told himself. I haven't twitched a muscle out of place. I know I haven't. He can read me like a stele. I can outstare him.
'Thank you, sire.'
'I imagine they'll be miles away by now,' said Teppic. 'Whoever they were. She was only a handmaiden, wasn't she?'
'It is unthinkable that anyone could disobey your judgements! There is no-one in the kingdom that would dare to! Their souls would be forfeit! They will be hunted down, sire! Hunted down and destroyed!'
The servants cowered behind Teppic. This wasn't mere anger. This was wrath. Real, old-time, vintage wrath. And waxing? It waxed like a hatful of moons.
'Are you feeling all right, Dios?'
Dios had turned to look out across the river. The Great Pyramid was almost complete. The sight of it seemed to calm him down or, at least, stabilise him on some new mental plateau.
'Yes, sire,' he said. 'Thank you.' He breathed deeply. 'Tomorrow, sire, you are pleased to witness the capping of the pyramid. A momentous occasion. Of course, it will be some time before the interior chambers are completed.'
'Fine. Fine. And this morning, I think, I should like to visit my father.'
'I am sure the late king will be pleased to see you, sire. It is your wish that I should accompany you.'
'Oh.'
It's a fact as immutable as the Third Law of Sod that there is no such thing as a good Grand Vizier. A predilection to cackle and plot is apparently part of the job spec.
High priests tend to get put in the same category. They have to face the implied assumption that no sooner do they get the funny hat than they're issuing strange orders, e.g., princesses tied to rocks for itinerant sea monsters and throwing little babies in the sea.
This is a gross slander. Throughout the history of the Disc most high priests have been serious, pious and conscientious men who have done their best to interpret the wishes of the gods, sometimes disembowelling or flaying alive hundreds of people in a day in order to make sure they're getting it absolutely right.
King Teppicymon XXVII's casket lay in state. Crafted it was of foryphy, smaradgine, skelsa and delphinet, inlaid it was with pink jade and shode, perfumed and fumed it was with many rare resins and perfumes It looked very impressive but, the king considered, it wasn't worth dying for. He gave up and wandered across the courtyard.
A new player had entered the drama of his death.
Grinjer, the maker of models.
He'd always wondered about the models. Even a humble farmer expected to be buried with a selection of crafted livestock, which would somehow become real in the netherworld. Many a man made do with one cow like a toast rack in this world in order to afford a pedigree herd in the next Nobles and kings got the complete set, including model carts, houses, boats and anything else too big or inconvenient to fit in the tomb. Once on the other side, they'd somehow become the genuine article.
The king frowned. When he was alive he'd known that it was true. Not doubted it for a moment Grinjer stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as, with great care, he tweezered a tiny oar to a perfect 1/80th scale river trireme. Every flat surface in his corner of the workshop was stacked with midget animals and artifacts; some of his more impressive ones hung from wires on the ceiling.
The king had already ascertained from overheard conversation that Grinjer was twenty-six, couldn't find anything to stop the inexorable advance of his acne, and lived at home with his mother. Where, in the evenings, he made models. Deep in the duffel coat of his mind he hoped one day to find a nice girl who would understand the absolute importance of getting every detail right on a ceremonial six-wheeled ox cart, and who would hold his glue-pot, and always be ready with a willing thumb whenever anything needed firm pressure until the paste dried.
He was aware of trumpets and general excitement behind him. He ignored it. There always seemed to be a lot of fuss these days. In his experience it was always about trivial things. People just didn't have their priorities right. He'd been waiting two months for a few ounces of gum varneti, and it didn't seem to bother anyone. He screwed his eyeglass into a more comfortable position and slotted a minute steering oar into place.
Someone was standing next to him. Well, they could make themselves useful .
'Could you just put your finger here,' he said, without glancing around. 'Just for a minute, until the glue sets.'
There seemed to be a sudden drop in temperature. He looked up into a smiling golden mask. Over its shoulder Dios's face was shading, in Grinjer's expert opinion, from No.13 (Pale Flesh) to No.37 (Sunset Purple, Gloss).
'Oh,' he said.
'It's very good,' said Teppic. 'What is it?'
Grinjer blinked at him. Then he blinked at the boat.
'It's an eighty-foot Khali-fashion river trireme with fishtail spear deck and ramming prow,' he said automatically.
He got the impression that more was expected of him. He cast around for something suitable.
'It's got more than five hundred bits,' he added. 'Every plank on the deck is individually cut, look.'
'Fascinating,' said Teppic. 'Well, I won't hold you up. Carry on the good work.'
'The sail really unfurls,' said Grinjer. 'See, if you pull this thread, the-'
The mask had moved. Dios was there instead. He gave Grinjer a short glare which indicated that more would be heard about this later on, and hurried after the king. So did the ghost of Teppicymon XXVII.
Teppic's eyes swivelled behind the mask. There was the open doorway into the room of caskets. He could just make out the one containing Ptraci; the wedge of wood was still under the lid.
'Our father, however, is over here. Sire,' said Dios. He could move as silently as a ghost.
'Oh. Yes.' Teppic hesitated and then crossed to the big case on its trestles. He stared down at it for some time. The gilded face on the lid looked like every other mask.
'A very good likeness, sire,' prompted Dios.
'Ye-ess,' said Teppic. 'I suppose so. He definitely looks happier. I suppose.'
'Hallo, my boy,' said the king. He knew that no-one could hear him, but he felt happier talking to them all the same. It was better than talking to himself. He was going to have more than enough time for that.
'I think it brings out the best in him, O commander of the heavens,' said the head sculptor.
'Makes me look like a constipated wax dolly.'
Teppic cocked his head on one side.
'Yes,' he said, uncertainly. 'Yes. Er. Well done.'
He half-turned to look through the doorway again.
Dios nodded to the guards on either side of the passageway.
'If you will excuse me, sire,' he said urbanely.
'Hmm?'
'The guards will continue their search.'
'Right. Oh-'
Dios bore down on Ptraci's casket, flanked by guards. He gripped the lid, thrust it backwards, and said, 'Behold! What do we find?'
Dil and Gern joined him. They looked inside.
'Wood shavings,' said Dil.
Gern sniffed. 'They smell nice, though,' he said.
Dios's fingers drummed on the lid. Teppic had never seen him at a loss before. The man actually started tapping the sides of the case, apparently seeking any hidden panels.
He closed the lid carefully and looked blankly at Teppic, who for the first time was very glad that the mask didn't reveal his expression.
'She's not in there,' said the old king. 'She got out for a call of nature when the men went to have their breakfast.'
She must have climbed out, Teppic told himself. So where is she now?
Dios scanned the room carefully and then, after swinging slowly backwards and forwards like a compass needle, his eyes fixed on the king's mummy case. It was big. It was roomy. There was a certain inevitability about it.
He crossed the room in a couple of strides and heaved it open.
'Don't bother to knock,' the king grumbled. 'It's not as if I'm going anywhere.'
Teppic risked a look. The mummy of the king was quite alone.
'Are you sure you're feeling all right, Dios?' he said.
'Yes, sire. We cannot be too careful, sire. Clearly they are not here, sire.'
'You look as if you could do with a breath of fresh air,' said Teppic, upbraiding himself for doing this but doing it, nevertheless. Dios at a loss was an awe-inspiring sight, and slightly disconcerting; it made one instinctively fear for the stability of things.
'Yes, sire. Thank you, sire.'
'Have a sit down and someone will bring you a glass of water. And then we will go and inspect the pyramid.'
Dios sat down.
There was a terrible little splintering noise.
'He's sat on the boat,' said the king. 'First humorous thing I've ever seen him do.'
The pyramid gave a new meaning to the word 'massive'. It bent the landscape around it. It seemed to Teppic that its very weight was deforming the shape of things, stretching the kingdom like a lead ball on a rubber sheet.
He knew that was a ridiculous idea. Big though the pyramid was, it was tiny compared to, say, a mountain.
But big, very big, compared to anything else. Anyway, mountains were meant to be big, the fabric of the universe was used to the idea. The pyramid was a made thing, and much bigger than a made thing ought to be.
It was also very cold. The black marble of its sides was shining white with frost in the roasting afternoon sun. He was foolish enough to touch it and left a layer of skin on the surface.
'It's freezing!'
'It's storing already, O breath of the river,' said Ptaclusp, who was sweating. 'It's the wossname, the boundary effect.'
'I note that you have ceased work on the burial chambers,' said Dios.
'The men . . . the temperature . . . boundary effects a bit too much to risk . . .' muttered Ptaclusp. 'Er.'
Teppic looked from one to the other.
'What's the matter?' he said. 'Are there problems?'
'Er,' said Ptaclusp.
'You're way ahead of schedule. Marvellous work,' said Teppic. 'You've put a tremendous amount of labour on the job.'
'Er. Yes. Only.'
There was silence except for the distant sounds of men at work, and the faint noise of the air sizzling where it touched the pyramid.
'It's bound to be all right when we get the capstone on, the pyramid builder managed eventually. 'Once it's flaring properly, no problem. Er.'
He indicated the electrum capstone. It was surprisingly small, only a foot or so across, and rested on a couple of trestles.
'We should be able to put it on tomorrow,' said Ptaclusp. 'Would your sire still be honouring us with the capping-out ceremony?' In his nervousness he gripped the hem of his robe and began to twist it. 'There's drinks,' he stuttered. 'And a silver trowel that you can take away with you. Everyone shouts hurrah and throws their hats in the air.
'Certainly,' said Dios. 'It will be an honour.'
'And for us too, your sire,' said Ptaclusp loyally.
'I meant for you,' said the high priest. He turned to the wide courtyard between the base of the pyramid and the river, which was lined with statues and stelae commemorating King Teppicymon's mighty deeds18, and pointed.
'And you can get rid of that,' he added.
Ptaclusp gave him a look of unhappy innocence.
'That statue,' said Dios, 'is what I am referring to., 'Oh. Ah. Well, we thought once you saw it in place, you see, in the right light, and what with Hat the Vulture-Headed God being very-'
'It goes,' said Dios.
'Right you are, your reverence,' said Ptaclusp miserably. It was, right now, the least of his problems, but on top of everything else he was beginning to think that the statue was following him around.
Dios leaned closer.
'You haven't seen a young woman anywhere on the site, have you?' he demanded.
'No women on the site, my lord,' said Ptaclusp. 'Very bad luck.'
'This one was provocatively dressed,' the high priest said.
'No, no women.'
'The palace is not far, you see. There must be many places to hide over here,' Dios continued, insistently.
Ptaclusp swallowed. He knew that, all right. Whatever had possessed him.
'I assure you, your reverence,' he said.
Dios gave him a scowl, and then turned to where Teppic, as it turned out, had been.
'Please ask him not to shake hands with anybody,' said the builder, as Dios hurried after the distant glint of sunlight on gold. The king still didn't seem to be able to get alongside the idea that the last thing the people wanted was a man of the people. Those workers who couldn't get out of the way in time were thrusting their hands behind their back.
Alone now, Ptaclusp fanned himself and staggered into the shade of his tent.
Where, waiting to see him, were Ptaclusp IIa, Ptaclusp IIa, Ptaclusp IIa and Ptaclusp IIa. Ptaclusp always felt uneasy in the presence of accountants, and four of them together was very bad, especially when they were all the same person. Three Ptaclusp IIbs were there as well; the other two, unless it was three by now, were out on the site.
He waved his hands in a conciliatory way.
'All right, all right,' he said. 'What are today's problems?'
One of the IIas pulled a stack of wax tablets towards him 'Have you any idea, father,' he began, employing that thin; razor-edged voice that accountants use to preface something unexpected and very expensive, 'what calculus is?'
'You tell me,' said Ptaclusp, sagging on to a stool.
'It's what I've had to invent to deal with the wages bill, father,' said another IIa.
'I thought that was algebra?' said Ptaclusp.
'We passed algebra last week,' said a third IIa. 'It's calculus now. I've had to loop myself another four times to work on it, and there's three of me working on-' he glanced at his brothers — 'quantum accountancy.'
'What's that for?' said his father wearily.
'Next week.' The leading accountant glared at the top slab. 'For example,' he said. 'You know Rthur the fresco painter?'
'What about him?'
'He — that is, they — have put in a bill for two years' work.'
'Oh.'
'They said they did it on Tuesday. On account of how time is fractal in nature, they said.'
'They said that?' said Ptaclusp.
'It's amazing what they pick up,' said one of the accountants, glaring at the paracosmic architects.
Ptaclusp hesitated. 'How many of them are there?'
'How should we know? We know there were fifty-three. Then he went critical. We've certainly seen him around a lot.' Two of the IIas sat back and steepled their fingers, always a bad sign in anyone having anything to do with money. 'The problem is,' one of them continued, 'that after the initial enthusiasm a lot of the workers looped themselves unofficially so that they could stay at home and send themselves out to work.'
'But that's ridiculous,' Ptaclusp protested weakly. 'They're not different people, they're just doing it to themselves.'
'That's never stopped anyone, father,' said IIa. 'How many men have stopped drinking themselves stupid at the age of twenty to save a stranger dying of liver failure at forty?'
There was silence while they tried to work this one out.
'A stranger-?' said Ptaclusp uncertainly.
'I mean himself, when older,' snapped IIa. 'That was philosophy,' he added.
'One of the masons beat himself up yesterday,' said one of the IIbs gloomily. 'He was fighting with himself over his wife. Now he's going mad because he doesn't know whether it's an earlier version of him or someone he hasn't been yet. He's afraid he's going to creep up on him. There's worse than that, too. Dad, we're paying forty thousand people, and we're only employing two thousand.'
'It's going to bankrupt us, that's what you're going to say,' said Ptaclusp. 'I know. It's all my fault. I just wanted something to hand on to you, you know. I didn't expect all this. It seemed too easy to start with.'
One of the IIas cleared his throat.
'It's . . . uh . . . not quite as bad as all that,' he said quietly.
'What do you mean?'
The accountant laid a dozen copper coins on the table.
'Well, er,' he said. 'You see, eh, it occurred to me, since there's all this movement in time, that it's not just people who can be looped, and, er, look, you see these coins?'
One coin vanished.
'They're all the same coin, aren't they,' said one of his brothers.
'Well, yes,' said the IIa, very embarrassed, because interfering with the divine flow of money was alien to his personal religion. 'The same coin at five minute intervals.'
'And you're using this trick to pay the men?' said Ptaclusp dully.
'It's not a trick! I give them the money,' said IIa primly. 'What happens to it afterwards isn't my responsibility, is it?'
'I don't like any of this,' said his father.
'Don't worry. It all evens out in the end,' said one of the IIas. 'Everyone gets what's coming to them.'
'Yes. That's what I'm afraid of,' said Ptaclusp.
'It's just a way of letting your money work for you,' said another son. 'It's probably quantum.'
'Oh, good,' said Ptaclusp weakly.
'We'll get the block on tonight, don't worry,' said one of the IIbs. 'After it's flared the power off we can all settle down.'
'I told the king we'd do it tomorrow.' The Ptaclusp IIbs went pale in unison. Despite the heat, it suddenly seemed a lot colder in the tent.
'Tonight, father,' said one of them. 'Surely you mean tonight?
'Tomorrow,' said Ptaclusp, firmly. 'I've arranged an awning and people throwing lotus blossom. There's going to be a band. Tocsins and trumpets and tinkling cymbals. And speeches and a meat tea afterwards. That's the way we've always done it. Attracts new customers. They like to have a look round.'
'Father, you've seen the way it soaks up. . . you've seen the frost . .
'Let it soak. We Ptaclusps don't go around capping off pyramids as though we were finishing off a garden wall. We don't knock off like a wossname in the night. People expect a ceremony.
'But-'
'I'm not listening. I've listened to too much of this new— fangled stuff. Tomorrow. I've had the bronze plaque made, and the velvet curtains and everything.'
One of the IIas shrugged. 'It's no good arguing with him,' he said. 'I'm from three hours ahead. I remember this meeting. We couldn't change his mind.'
'I'm from two hours ahead,' said one of his clones. 'I remember you saying that, too.'
Beyond the walls of the tent, the pyramid sizzled with accumulated time.
There is nothing mystical about the power of pyramids.
Pyramids are dams in the stream of time. Correctly shaped and orientated, with the proper paracosmic measurements correctly plumbed in, the temporal potential of the great mass of stone can be diverted to accelerate or reverse time over a very small area, in the same way that a hydraulic ram can be induced to pump water against the flow.
The original builders, who were of course ancients and therefore wise, knew this very well and the whole point of a correctly-built pyramid was to achieve absolute null time in the central chamber so that a dying king, tucked up there, would indeed live forever — or at least, never actually die. The time that should have passed in the chamber was stored in the bulk of the pyramid and allowed to flare off once every twenty-four hours.
After a few aeons people forgot this and thought you could achieve the same effect by a) ritual b) pickling people and c) storing their soft inner bits in jars.
This seldom works.
And so the art of pyramid tuning was lost, and all the knowledge became a handful of misunderstood rules and hazy recollections. The ancients were far too wise to build very big pyramids. They could cause very strange things, things that would make mere fluctuations in time look tiny by comparison.
By the way, contrary to popular opinion pyramids don't sharpen razor blades. They just take them back to when they weren't blunt. It's probably because of quantum.
Teppic lay on the strata of his bed, listening intently.
There were two guards outside the door, and another two on the balcony outside, and — he was impressed at Dios's forethought
— one on the roof. He could hear them trying to make no noise.
He'd hardly been able to protest. If black-clad miscreants were getting into the palace, then the person of the king had to be protected. It was undeniable.
He slipped off the solid mattress and glided through the twilight to the statue of Bast the Cat-Headed God in the corner, twisted off the head, and pulled out his assassin's costume. He dressed quickly, cursing the lack of mirrors, and then padded across and lurked behind a pillar.
The only problem, as far as he could see, was not laughing. Being a soldier in Djelibeybi was not a high risk job. There was never a hint of internal rebellion and, since either neighbour could crush the kingdom instantly by force of arms, there was no real point in selecting keen and belligerent warriors. In fact, the last thing the priesthood wanted was enthusiastic soldiers. Enthusiastic soldiers with no fighting to do soon get bored and start thinking dangerous thoughts, like how much better they could run the country.
Instead the job attracted big, solid men, the kind of men who could stand stock still for hours at a time without getting bored, men with the build of an ox and the mental processes to match. Excellent bladder control was also desirable.
He stepped out on to the balcony.
Teppic had learned how not to move stealthily. Millions of years of being eaten by creatures that know how to move stealthily has made humanity very good at spotting stealthy movement. Nor was it enough to make no noise, because little moving patches of silence always aroused suspicion. The trick was to glide through the night with a quiet reassurance, just like the air did.
There was a guard standing just outside the room. Teppic drifted past him and climbed carefully up the wall. It had been decorated with a complex bas relief of the triumphs of past monarchs, so Teppic used his family to give him a leg up.
The breeze was blowing off the desert as he swung his legs over the parapet and walked silently across the roof, which was still hot underfoot. The air had a recently-cooked smell, tinted with spice.
It was a strange feeling, to be creeping across the roof of your own palace, trying to avoid your own guards, engaged on a mission in direct contravention of your own decree and knowing that if you were caught you would have yourself thrown to the sacred crocodiles. After all, he'd apparently already instructed that he was to be shown no mercy if he was captured.
Somehow it added an extra thrill.
There was freedom of a sort up here on the rooftops, the only kind of freedom available to a king of the valley. It occurred to Teppic that the landless peasants down on the delta had more freedom than he did, although the seditious and non-kingly side of him said, yes, freedom to catch any diseases of their choice, starve as much as they wanted, and die of whatever dreadful ague took their fancy. But freedom, of a sort.
A faint noise in the huge silence of the night drew him to the riverward edge of the roof. The Djel sprawled in the moonlight, broad and oily.
There was a boat in midstream, heading back from the far bank and the necropolis. There was no mistaking the figure at the oars. The flarelight gleamed off his bald head.
One day, Teppic thought, I'll follow him. I'll find out what it is he does over there.
If he goes over in daylight, of course.
In daylight the necropolis was merely gloomy, as though the whole universe had shut down for early-closing. He'd even explored it, wandering through streets and alleys that contrived to be still and dusty no matter what the weather was on the other, the living side of the water. There was always a breathless feel about it, which was probably not to be wondered at. Assassins liked the night on general principles, but the night of the necropolis was something else. Or rather, it was the same thing, but a lot more of it. Besides, it was the only city anywhere on the Disc where an assassin couldn't find employment.
He reached the light well that opened on the embalmers' courtyard and peered down. A moment later he landed lightly on the floor and slipped into the room of cases.
'Hallo, lad.'
Teppic opened the lid of the case. It was still empty.
'She's in one of the ones at the back,' said the king. 'Never had much of a sense of direction.'
It was a great big palace. Teppic could barely find his way around it by daylight. He considered his chances of carrying out a search in pitch darkness.
'It's a family trait, you know. Your grandad had to have Left and Right painted on his sandals, it was that bad. It's lucky for you that you take after your mother in that respect.'
It was strange. She didn't talk, she chattered. She didn't seem to be able to hold a simple thought in her head for more than about ten seconds. Her brain appeared to be wired directly to her mouth, so that as soon as a thought entered her head she spoke it out loud. Compared to the ladies he had met at soirees in Ankh, who delighted in entertaining young assassins and fed them expensive delicacies and talked to them of high and delicate matters while their eyes sparkled like carborundum drills and their lips began to glisten compared to them, she was as empty as a, as a, well, as an empty thing. Nevertheless, he found he desperately wanted to find her. The sheer undemandingness of her was like a drug. The memory of her bosom was quite beside the point.
'I'm glad you've come back for her,' said the king vaguely.
'She's your sister, you know. Half sister, that is. Sometimes I wish I'd married her mother, but you see she wasn't royal. Very bright woman, her mother.'
Teppic listened hard. There it was again: a faint breathing noise, only heard at all because of the deep silence of the night. He worked his way to the back of the room, listened again, and lifted the lid of a case.
Ptraci was curled up on the bottom, fast asleep with her head on her arm.
He leaned the lid carefully against the wall and touched her hair. She muttered something in her sleep, and settled into a more comfortable position.
'Er, I think you'd better wake up,' he whispered.
She changed position again and muttered something like: 'Wstflgl.'
Teppic hesitated. Neither his tutors nor Dios had prepared him for this. He knew at least seventy different ways of killing a sleeping person, but none to wake them up first.
He prodded her in what looked like the least embarrassing area of her skin. She opened her eyes.
'Oh,' she said. 'It's you.' And she yawned.
'I've come to take you away,' said Teppic. 'You've been asleep all day.'
'I heard someone talking,' she said, stretching in a fashion that made Teppic look away hurriedly. 'It was that priest, the one with the face like a bald eagle. He's really horrible.'
'He is, isn't he?' agreed Teppic, intensely relieved to hear it said.
'So I just kept quiet. And there was the king. The new king.'
'Oh. He was down here, was he?' said Teppic weakly. The bitterness in her voice was like a Number Four stabbing knife in his heart.
'All the girls say he's really weird,' she added, as he helped her out of the case. 'You can touch me, you know. I'm not made of china.'
He steadied her arm, feeling in sore need of a cold bath and a quick run around the rooftops.
'You're an assassin, aren't you,' she went on. 'I remembered that after you'd gone. An assassin from foreign parts. All that black. Have you come to kill the king?'
'I wish I could,' said Teppic. 'He's really beginning to get on my nerves. Look, could you take your bangles off?'
'Why?'
'They make such a noise when you walk.' Even Ptraci's earrings appeared to chime the hours when she moved her head.
'I don't want to,' she said. 'I'd feel naked without them.'
'You're nearly naked with them,' hissed Teppic. 'Please!'
'She can play the dulcimer,' said the ghost of Teppicymon XXVII, apropos of nothing much. 'Not very well, mind you. She's up to page five of «Little Pieces for Tiny Fingers».'
Teppic crept to the passage leading out of the embalming room and listened hard. Silence ruled in the palace, broken only by heavy breathing and the occasional clink behind him as Ptraci stripped herself of her jewellery. He crept back.
'Please hurry up,' he said, 'we haven't got a lot of-'
Ptraci was crying.
'Er,' said Teppic. 'Er.'
'Some of these were presents from my granny,' sniffed Ptraci. 'The old king gave me some, too. These earrings have been in my family for ever such a long time. How would you like it if you had to do it?'
'You see, jewellery isn't just something she wears,' said the ghost of Teppicymon XXVII. 'It's part of who she is.' My word, he added to himself, that's probably an Insight. Why is it so much easier to think when you're dead?
'I don't wear any,' said Teppic.
'You've got all those daggers and things.'
'Well, I need them to do my job.'
'Well then.'
'Look, you don't have to leave them here, you can put them in my pouch,' he said. 'But we must be going. Please!'
'Goodbye,' said the ghost sadly, watching them sneak out to the courtyard. He floated back to his corpse, who wasn't the best of company.
The breeze was stronger when they reached the roof. It was hotter, too, and dry.
Across the river one or two of the older pyramids were already sending up their flares, but they were weak and looked wrong.
'I feel itchy,' said Ptraci. 'What's wrong?'
'It feels like we're in for a thunderstorm,' said Teppic, staring across the river at the Great Pyramid. Its blackness had intensified, so that it was a triangle of deeper darkness in the night. Figures were running around its base like lunatics watching their asylum burn.
'What's a thunderstorm?'
'Very hard to describe,' he said, in a preoccupied voice. 'Can you see what they're doing over there?'
Ptraci squinted across the river.
'They're very busy,' she said.
'Looks more like panic to me.'
A few more pyramids flared, but instead of roaring straight up the flames flickered and lashed backwards and forwards, driven by intangible winds.
Teppic shook himself. 'Come on,' he said. 'Let's get you away from here.'
'I said we should have capped it this evening,' shouted Ptaclusp IIb above the screaming of the pyramid. 'I can't float it up now, the turbulence up there must be terrific!'
The ice of day was boiling off the black marble, which was already warm to the touch. He stared distractedly at the capstone on its cradle and then at his brother, who was still in his nightshirt.
'Where's father?' he said.
'I sent one of us to go and wake him up,' said IIa.
'Who?'
'One of you, actually.'
'Oh.' IIb stared again at the capstone. 'It's not that heavy,' he said. 'Two of us could manhandle it up there.' He gave his brother an enquiring look.
'You must be mad. Send some of the men to do it.'
'They've all run away-'
Down river another pyramid tried to flare, spluttered, and then ejected a screaming, ragged flame that arched across the sky and grounded near the top of the Great Pyramid itself.
'It's interfering with the others now!' shouted IIb. 'Come on. We've got to flare it off, it's the only way!'
About a third of the way up the pyramid's flanks a crackling blue zigzag arced out and struck itself on a stone sphinx. The air above it boiled.
The two brothers slung the stone between them and staggered to the scaffolding, while the dust around them whirled into strange shapes.
'Can you hear something?' said IIb, as they stumbled on to the first platform.
'What, you mean the fabric of time and space being put through the wringer?' said IIa.
The architect gave his brother a look of faint admiration. It was an unusual remark for an accountant. Then his face returned to its previous look of faint terror.
'No, not that,' he said.
'Well, the sound of the very air itself being subjected to horrible tortures?'
'Not that, either,' said IIb, vaguely annoyed. 'I mean the creaking noise.'
Three more pyramids struck their discharges, which fizzled through the roiling clouds overhead and poured into the black marble above them.
'Can't hear anything like that,' said IIa.
'I think it's coming from the pyramid.'
'Well, you can put your ear against it if you like, but I'm not going to.'
The scaffolding swayed in the storm as they eased their way up another ladder, the heavy capstone rocking between them.
'I said we shouldn't do it,' muttered the accountant, as the stone slid gently on to his toes. 'We shouldn't have built this.'
'Just shut up and lift your end, will you?'
And so, one rocking ladder after another, the brothers Ptaclusp eased their bickering way up the flanks of the Great Pyramid, while the lesser tombs along the Djel fired one after another, and the sky streamed with lines of sizzling time.
It was around about this point that the greatest mathematician in the world, lying in cosy flatulence in his stall below the palace, stopped chewing the cud and realised that something very wrong was happening to numbers. All the numbers.
The camel looked along its nose at Teppic. Its expression made it clear that of all the riders in all the world it would least like to ride it, he was right at the top of the list. However, camels look like that at everyone. Camels have a very democratic approach to the human race. They hate every member of it, without making any distinctions for rank or creed.
This one appeared to be chewing soap.
Teppic looked distractedly down the shadowy length of the royal stables, which had once contained a hundred camels. He'd have given the world for a horse, and a moderately-sized continent for a pony. But the stables now held only a handful of rotting war chariots, relics of past glories, an elderly elephant whose presence was a bit of a mystery, and this camel. It looked an extremely inefficient animal. It was going threadbare at the knees.
'Well, this is it,' he said to Ptraci. 'I don't dare try the river during the night. I could try and get you over the border.'
'Is that saddle on right?' said Ptraci. 'It looks awfully funny.'
'It's on an awfully odd creature,' said Teppic. 'How do we climb on to it?'
'I've seen the camel drivers at work,' she replied. 'I think they just hit them very hard with a big stick.'
The camel knelt down and gave her a smug look.
Teppic shrugged, pulled open the doors to the outside world, and stared into the faces of five guards.
He backed away. They advanced. Three of them were holding the heavy Djel bows, which could propel an arrow through a door or turn a charging hippo into three tons of mobile kebab. The guards had never had to fire them at a fellow human, but looked as though they were prepared to entertain the idea.
The guard captain tapped one of the men on the shoulder, and said, 'Go and inform the high priest.'
He glared at Teppic.
'Throw down all your weapons,' he said.
'What, all of them?'
'Yes. All of them.'
'It might take some time,' said Teppic cautiously.
'And keep your hands where I can see them,' the captain added.
'We could be up against a real impasse here,' Teppic ventured. He looked from one guard to another. He knew a variety of methods of unarmed combat, but they all rather relied on the opponent not being about to fire an arrow straight through you as soon as you moved. But he could probably dive sideways, and once he had the cover of the camel stalls he could bide his time And that would leave Ptraci exposed. Besides, he could hardly go around fighting his own guards. That wasn't acceptable behaviour, even for a king.
There was a movement behind the guards and Dios drifted into view, as silent and inevitable as an eclipse of the moon. He was holding a lighted torch, which reflected wild highlights on his bald head.
'Ah,' he said. 'The miscreants are captured. Well done.' He nodded to the captain. 'Throw them to the crocodiles.'
'Dios?' said Teppic, as two of the guards lowered their bows and bore down on him.
'Did you speak?'
'You know who I am, man. Don't be silly.'
The high priest raised the torch.
'You have the advantage of me, boy,' he said. 'Metaphorically speaking.'
'This is not funny,' said Teppic. 'I order you to tell them who I am.'
'As you wish. This assassin,' said Dios, and the voice had the cut and sear of a thermic lance, 'has killed the king.'
'I am the king, damn it,' said Teppic. 'How could I kill myself?'
'We are not stupid,' said Dios. 'These men know the king does not skulk the palace at night, or consort with condemned criminals. All that remains for us to find out is how you disposed of the body.'
His eyes fixed on Teppic's face, and Teppic realised that the high priest was, indeed, truly mad. It was the rare kind of madness caused by being yourself for so long that habits of sanity have etched themselves into the brain. I wonder how old he really is? he thought.
'These assassins are cunning creatures,' said Dios. 'Have a care of him.'
There was a crash beside the priest. Ptraci had tried to throw a camel prod, and missed.
When everyone looked back Teppic had vanished. The guards beside him were busy collapsing slowly to the floor, groaning.
Dios smiled.
'Take the woman,' he snapped, and the captain darted forward and grabbed Ptraci, who hadn't made any attempt to run away. Dios bent down and picked up the prod.
'There are more guards outside,' he said. 'I'm sure you will realise that. It will be in your interests to step forward.'
'Why?' said Teppic, from the shadows. He fumbled in his boot for his blowpipe.
'You will then be thrown to the sacred crocodiles, by order of the king,' said Dios.
'Something to look forward to, eh?' said Teppic, feverishly screwing bits together.
'It would certainly be preferable to many alternatives,' said Dios.
In the darkness Teppic ran his fingers over the little coded knobs on the darts. Most of the really spectacular poisons would have evaporated or dissolved into harmlessness by now, but there were a number of lesser potions designed to give their clients nothing more than a good night's sleep. An assassin might have to work his way to an inhume past a number of alert bodyguards. It was considered impolite to inhume them as well.
'You could let us go,' said Teppic. 'I suspect that's what you want, isn't it? For me to go away and never come back? That suits me fine.'
Dios hesitated.
'You're supposed to say «And let the girl go»,' he said.
'Oh, yes. And that, too,' said Teppic.
'No. I would be failing in my duty to the king,' said Dios.
'For goodness sake, Dios, you know I am the king!'
'No. I have a very clear picture of the king. You are not the king,' said the priest.
Teppic peered over the edge of the camel stall. The camel peered over his shoulder.
And then the world went mad.
All right, madder.
All the pyramids were blazing now, filling the sky with their sooty light as the brothers Ptaclusp struggled to the main working platform.
IIa collapsed on the planking, wheezing like an elderly bellows. A few feet away the sloping side was hot to the touch, and there was no doubt in his mind now that the pyramid was creaking, like a sailing ship in a gale. He had never paid much attention to the actual mechanics as opposed to the cost of pyramid construction, but he was pretty certain that the noise was as wrong as II and II making V.
His brother reached out to touch the stone, but drew his hand back as small sparks flashed around his fingers.
'You can feel the warmth,' he said. 'It's astonishing!'
'Why?'
'Heating up a mass like this. I mean, the sheer tonnage…'
'I don't like it, Two-bee,' IIa quavered. 'Let's just leave the stone here, shall we? I'm sure it'll be all right, and in the morning we can send a gang up here, they'll know exactly what-'
His words were drowned out as another flare crackled across the sky and hit the column of dancing air fifty feet above them. He grabbed part of the scaffolding.
'Sod take this,' he said. 'I'm off.'
'Hang on a minute,' said IIb. 'I mean, what is creaking? Stone can't creak.'
'The whole bloody scaffolding is moving, don't be daft!' He stared goggle-eyed at his brother. 'Tell me it's the scaffolding,' he pleaded.
'No, I'm certain this time. It's coming from inside.' They stared at one another, and then at the rickety ladder leading up to the tip, or to where the tip should be.
'Come on!' said IIb. 'It can't flare off, it's trying to find ways of discharging-'
There was a sound as loud as the groaning of continents.
Teppic felt it. He felt that his skin was several sizes too small. He felt that someone was holding his ears and trying to twist his head off.
He saw the guard captain sag to his knees, fighting to get his helmet off, and he leapt the stall.