'Ah,' said the geometrician, taking the cork out of an amphora with his teeth. 'The mysterious young man in black from the lost kingdom.'
'I was hoping you could help me find it again?' said Teppic.
'I heard that you have some very unusual ideas in Ephebe.'
'It had to happen,' said Pthagonal. He pulled a pair of dividers from the folds of his robe and measured the pie thoughtfully. 'Is it a constant, do you think? It's a depressing concept.'
'Sorry?' said Teppic.
'The diameter divides into the circumference, you know. It ought to be three times. You'd think so, wouldn't you? But does it? No. Three point one four one and lots of other figures. There's no end to the buggers. Do you know how pissed off that makes me?'
'I expect it makes you extremely pissed off,' said Teppic politely.
'Right. It tells me that the Creator used the wrong kind of circles. It's not even a proper number! I mean, three point five, you could respect. Or three point three. That'd look right.' He stared morosely at the pie.
'Excuse me, you said something about it had to happen?'
'What?' said Pthagonal, from the depths of his gloom. 'Pie!' he added.
'What had to happen?' Teppic prompted.
'You can't mess with geometry, friend. Pyramids? Dangerous things. Asking for trouble. I mean,' Pthagonal reached unsteadily for his wine cup, 'how long did they think they could go on building bigger and bigger pyramids for? I mean, where did they think power comes from? I mean,' he hiccuped, 'you've been in that place, haven't you? Ever noticed how slow it all seems to be?'
'Oh, yes,' said Teppic flatly.
'That's because the time is sucked up, see? Pyramids. So they have to flare it off. Flarelight, they call it. They think it looks pretty! It's their time they're burning off!'
'All I know is the air feels as though it's been boiled in a sock,' said Teppic. 'And nothing actually changes, even if it doesn't stay the same.
'Right,' said Pthagonal. 'The reason being, it's past time. They use up past time, over and over again. The pyramids take all the new time. And if you don't let the pyramids flare, the power build up'll-'' he paused. 'I suppose,' he went on, 'that it'd escape along a wossname, a fracture. In space.'
'I was there before the kingdom, er, went,' said Teppic. 'I thought I saw the big pyramid move.'
'There you are then. It's probably moved the dimensions around by ninety degrees,' said Pthagonal, with the assurance of the truly drunk.
'You mean, so length is height and height is width?'
Pthagonal shook an unsteady finger.
'Nonono,' he said. 'So that length is height and height is breadth and breadth is width and width is a', he burped 'A 'time. S'nother dimessnon, see? Four of the bastards. Time's one of them. Ninety thingys to the other three. Degrees is what I mean. Only, only, it can't exist in this world like that, so the place had to sort of pop outside for a bit, see? Otherwise you'd have people getting older by walking sideways. He looked sadly into the depths of his cup. 'And every birthday you'd age another mile,' he added. Teppic looked at him aghast.
'That's time and space for you,' Pthagonal went on. 'You can twist them all over the place if you're not careful. Three point one four one. What sort of a number d'you call that?'
'It sounds horrible,' said Teppic.
'Damn right. Somewhere,' Pthagonal was beginning to sway on his bench, 'somewhere someone built a universe with a decent, respectable value of, of,' he peered blankly at the table, 'of pie. Not some damn number that never comes to an end, what kind of a'
'I meant, people getting older just by walking along!'
'I dunno, though. You could have a stroll back to where you were eighteen. Or wander up and see what you are going to look like when you're seventy. Travelling in width, though, that'd be the real trick.'
Pthagonal smiled vacantly and then, very slowly, keeled over into his dinner, some of which moved out of the way25. Teppic became aware that the philosophic din around him had subsided a bit. He stared along the line until he spotted Ibid.
'It won't work,' said Ibid. 'The Tyrant won't listen to us. Nor will the people. Anyway' he glanced at Antiphon — 'we're not all of one mind on the subject.'
'Damn Tsorteans need teaching a lesson,' said Antiphon sternly. 'Not room for two major powers on this continent. Damn bad sports, anyway, just because we stole their queen. Youthful high spirits, love will have its way'
Copolymer woke up.
'You've got it wrong,' he said mildly. 'The great war, that was because they stole our queen. What was her name now, face that launched a thousand camels, began with an A or a T or-'
'Did they?' shouted Antiphon. 'The bastards!'
'I'm reasonably certain,' said Copolymer.
Teppic sagged, and turned to Endos the Listener. He was still eating his dinner, with the air of one who is determined to preserve his digestion.
'Endos?'
The Listener laid his knife and fork carefully on either side of his plate.
'Yes?'
'They're really all mad, aren't they?' said Teppic wearily. 'That's extremely interesting,' said Endos. 'Do go on.' He reached shyly into his toga and brought forth a scrap of parchment, which he pushed gently towards Teppic.
'What's this?'
'My bill,' said Endos. 'Five minutes Attentive Listening. Most of my gentlemen have monthly accounts, but I understand you'll be leaving in the morning?'
Teppic gave up. He wandered away from the table and into the cold garden surrounding the citadel of Ephebe. White marble statues of ancient Ephebians doing heroic things with no clothes on protruded through the greenery and, here and there, there were statues of Ephebian gods. It was hard to tell the difference. Teppic knew that Dios had hard words to say about the Ephebians for having gods that looked just like people. If the gods looked just like everyone else, he used to say, how would people know how to treat them?
Teppic had rather liked the idea. According to legend the Ephebians' gods were just like humans, except that they used their godhood to get up to things humans didn't have the nerve to do. A favourite trick of Ephebian gods, he recalled, was turning into some animal in order to gain the favours of highly-placed Ephebian women. And one of them had reputedly turned himself into a golden shower in pursuit of his intended. All this raised interesting questions about everyday night life in sophisticated Ephebe.
He found Ptraci sitting on the grass under a poplar tree, feeding the tortoise. He gave it a suspicious look, in case it was a god trying it on. It did not look like a god. If it was a god, it was putting on an incredibly good act.
She was feeding it a lettuce leaf.
'Dear little ptortoise,' she said, and then looked up. 'Oh, it's you,' she said flatly.
'You didn't miss much,' said Teppic, sagging on to the grass. 'They're a bunch of maniacs. When I left they were smashing the plates.'
'That's ptraditional at the end of an Ephebian meal,' said Ptraci.
Teppic thought about this. 'Why not before?' he said.
'And then they probably dance to the sound of the bourzuki,' Ptraci added. 'I think it's a sort of dog.'
Teppic sat with his head in his hands.
'I must say you speak Ephebian well,' he said. 'Pthank you.'
'Just a trace of an accent, though.'
'Languages is part of the ptraining,' she said. 'And my grandmother told me that a ptrace of foreign accent is more fascinating.'
'We learned the same thing,' said Teppic. 'An assassin should always be slightly foreign, no matter where he is. I'm good at that part,' he added bitterly.
She began to massage his neck.
'I went down to the harbour,' she said. 'There's those things like big rafts, you know, camels of the sea'
'Ships,' said Teppic.
'And they go everywhere. We could go anywhere we want. The world is our pthing with pearls in it, if we like.'
Teppic told her about Pthagonal's theory. She didn't seem surprised.
'Like an old pond where no new water comes in,' she observed. 'So everyone goes round and round in the same old puddle. All the ptime you live has been lived already. It must be like other people's bathwater.'
'I'm going to go back.'
Her fingers stopped their skilled kneading of his muscles.
'We could go anywhere,' she repeated. 'We've got ptrades, we could sell that camel. You could show me that Ankh-Morpork place. It sounds interesting.'
Teppic wondered what effect Ankh-Morpork would have on the girl. Then he wondered what effect she would have on the city. She was definitely flowering. Back in the Old Kingdom she'd never apparently had any original thoughts beyond the choice of the next grape to peel, but since she was outside she seemed to have changed. Her jaw hadn't changed, it was still quite small and, he had to admit, very pretty. But somehow it was more noticeable. She used to look at the ground when she spoke to him. She still didn't always look at him when she spoke to him, but now it was because she was thinking about something else.
He found he kept wanting to say, politely, without stressing it in any way, just as a very gentle reminder, that he was king. But he had a feeling that she'd say she hadn't heard, and would he please repeat it, and if she looked at him he'd never be able to say it twice.
'You could go,' he said. 'You'd get on well. I could give you a few names and addresses.'
'And what would you do?'
'I dread to think what's going on back home,' said Teppic. 'I ought to do something.'
'You can't. Why ptry? Even if you didn't want to be an assassin there's lots of pthings you could do. And you said the man said it's not a place people could get into any more. I hate pyramids.'
'Surely there's people there you care about?'
Ptraci shrugged. 'If they're dead there's nothing I can do about it,' she said. 'And if they're alive, there's nothing I 'can do about it. So I shan't.'
Teppic stared at her in a species of horrified admiration. It was a beautiful summary of things as they were. He just couldn't bring himself to think that way. His body had been away for seven years but his blood had been in the kingdom for a thousand times longer. Certainly he'd wanted to leave it behind, but that was the whole point. It would have been there. Even if he'd avoided it for the rest of his life, it would have still been a sort of anchor.
'I feel so wretched about it,' he repeated. 'I'm sorry. That's all there is to it. Even to go back for five minutes, just to say, well, that I'm not coming back. That'd be enough. It's probably all my fault.'
'But there isn't a way back! You'll just hang around sadly, like those deposed kings you ptold me about. You know, with pthreadbare cloaks and always begging for their food in a high— class way. There's nothing more useless than a king without a kingdom, you said. Just think about it.'
They wandered through the sunset streets of the city, and towards the harbour. All streets in the city led towards the harbour.
Someone was just putting a torch to the lighthouse, which was one of the More Than Seven Wonders of the World and had been built to a design by Pthagonal using the Golden Rule and the Five Aesthetic Principles. Unfortunately it had then been built in the wrong place because putting it in the right place would have spoiled the look of the harbour, but it was generally agreed by mariners to be a very beautiful lighthouse and something to look at while they were waiting to be towed off the rocks.
The harbour below it was thronged with ships. Teppic and Ptraci picked their way past crates and bundles until they reached the long curved guard wall, harbour calm on one side, choppy with waves on the other. Above them the lighthouse flared and sparked.
Those boats would be going to places he'd only ever heard of, he knew. The Ephebians were great traders. He could go back to Ankh and get his diploma, and then the world would indeed be the mollusc of his choice and he had any amount of knives to open it with.
Ptraci put her hand in his.
And there'd be none of this marrying relatives business. The months in Djelibeybi already seemed like a dream, one of those circular dreams that you never quite seem able to shake off and which make insomnia an attractive prospect. Whereas here was a future, unrolling in front of him like a carpet.
What a chap needed at a time like this was a sign, some sort of book of instructions. The trouble with life was that you didn't get a chance to practise before doing it for real. You only— 'Good grief? It's Teppic, isn't it?' The voice was addressing him from ankle height. A head appeared over the stone of the jetty, quickly followed by its body. An extremely richly dressed body, one on which no expense had been spared in the way of gems, furs, silks and laces, provided that all of them, every single one, was black.
It was Chidder.
'What's it doing now?' said Ptaclusp.
His son poked his head cautiously over the ruins of a pillar and watched Hat, the Vulture-Headed God.
'It's sniffing around,' he said. 'I think it likes the statue. Honestly, dad, why did you have to go and buy a thing like that?'
'It was in a job lot,' said Ptaclusp. 'Anyway, I thought it would be a popular line.'
'With who?'
'Well, he likes it.'
Ptaclusp IIb risked another squint at the angular monstrosity that was still hopping around the ruins.
'Tell him he can have it if he goes away,' he suggested.
'Tell him he can have it at cost.'
Ptaclusp winced. 'At a discount,' he said. 'A special cut rate for our supernatural customers.
He stared up at the sky. From their hiding place in the ruins of the construction camp, with the Great Pyramid still humming like a powerhouse behind them, they'd had an excellent view of the arrival of the gods. At first he'd viewed them with a certain amount of equanimity. Gods would be good customers, they always wanted temples and statues, he could deal directly, cut out the middle man.
And then it had occurred to him that a god, when he was unhappy about the product, as it might be, maybe the plasterwork wasn't exactly as per spec, or perhaps a corner of the temple was a bit low on account of unexpected quicksand, a god didn't just come around demanding in a loud voice to see the manager. No. A god knew exactly where you were, and got to the point. Also, gods were notoriously bad payers. So were humans, of course, but they didn't actually expect you to die before they settled the account.
His gaze turned to his other son, a painted silhouette against the statue, his mouth a frozen O of astonishment, and Ptaclusp reached a decision.
'I've just about had it with pyramids,' he said. 'Remind me, lad. If we ever get out of here, no more pyramids. We've got set in our ways. Time to branch out, I reckon.'
'That's what I've been telling you for ages, dad!' said IIb. 'I've told you, a couple of decent aqueducts will make a tremendous-'
'Yes, yes, I remember,' said Ptaclusp. 'Yes. Aqueducts. All those arches and things. Fine. Only I can't remember where you said you have to put the coffin in.'
'Dad!'
'Don't mind me, lad. I think I'm going mad.'
I couldn't have seen a mummy and two men over there, carrying sledgehammers.
It was, indeed, Chidder.
And Chidder had a boat.
Teppic knew that further along the coast the Seriph of Al— Khali lived in the fabulous palace of the Rhoxie, which was said to have been built in one night by a genie and was famed in myth and legend for its splendour26. The Unnamed was the Rhoxie afloat, but more so. Its designer had a gilt complex, and had tried every trick with gold paint, curly pillars and expensive drapes to make it look less like a ship and more like a boudoir that had collided with a highly suspicious type of theatre.
In fact, you needed an assassin's eyes for hidden detail to notice how innocently the gaudiness concealed the sleekness of the hull and the fact, even when you added the cabin space and the holds together, that there still seemed to be a lot of capacity unaccounted for. The water around what Ptraci called the pointed end was strangely rippled, but it would be totally ridiculous to suspect such an obvious merchantman of having a concealed ramming spike underwater, or that a mere five minutes' work with an axe would turn this wallowing Alcdzar into something that could run away from nearly everything else afloat and make the few that could catch up seriously regret it.
'Very impressive,' said Teppic.
'It's all show, really,' said Chidder.
'Yes. I can see that.'
'I mean, we're poor traders.'
Teppic nodded. 'The usual phrase is «poor but honest traders»,' he said.
Chidder smiled a merchant's smile. 'Oh, I think we'll stick on «poor» at the moment. How the hell are you, anyway? Last we heard you were going off to be king of some place no-one's ever heard of. And who is this lovely young lady?'
'Her name' Teppic began.
'Ptraci,' said Ptraci.
'She's a hand-' Teppic began.
'She must surely be a royal princess,' said Chidder smoothly. 'And it would give me the greatest pleasure if she, if indeed both of you, would dine with me tonight. Humble sailor's fare, I'm afraid, but we muddle along, we muddle along.'
'Not Ephebian, is it?' said Teppic.
'Ship's biscuit, salt beef, that sort of thing,' said Chidder, without taking his eyes off Ptraci. They hadn't left her since she came on board.
Then he laughed. It was the old familiar Chidder laugh, not exactly without humour, but clearly well under the control of its owner's higher brain centres.
'What an astonishing coincidence,' he said. 'And us due to sail at dawn, too. Can I offer you a change of clothing? You both look somewhat, er, travel-stained.'
'Rough sailor clothing, I expect,' said Teppic. 'As befits a humble merchant, correct me if I'm wrong?'
In fact Teppic was shown to a small cabin as exquisitely and carefully furnished as a jewelled egg, where there was laid upon the bed as fine an assortment of clothing as could be found anywhere on the Circle Sea. True, it all appeared second-hand, but carefully laundered and expertly stitched so that the sword cuts hardly showed at all. He gazed thoughtfully at the hooks on the wall, and the faint patching on the wood which hinted that various things had once been hung there and hastily removed.
He stepped out into the narrow corridor, and met Ptraci. She'd chosen a red court dress such as had been the fashion in Ankh-Morpork ten years previously, with puffed sleeves and vast concealed underpinnings and ruffs the size of millstones.
Teppic learned something new, which was that attractive women dressed in a few strips of gauze and a few yards of silk can actually look far more desirable when fully clad from neck to ankle. She gave an experimental twirl.
'There are any amount of things like this in there,' she said. 'Is this how women dress in Ankh-Morpork? It's like wearing a house. It doesn't half make you sweaty.'
'Look, about Chidder,' said Teppic urgently. 'I mean, he's a good fellow and everything, but-'
'He's very kind, isn't he,' she agreed.
'Well. Yes. He is,' Teppic admitted, hopelessly. 'He's an old friend.'
'That's nice.'
One of the crew materialised at the end of the corridor and bowed them into the state cabin, his air of old retainership marred only by the criss-cross pattern of scars on his head and some tattoos that made the pictures in The Shuttered Palace look like illustrations in a DIY shelving manual. The things he could make them do by flexing his biceps could keep entire dockside taverns fascinated for hours, and he was not aware that the worst moment of his entire life was only a few minutes away.
'This is all very pleasant,' said Chidder, pouring some wine. He nodded at the tattooed man. 'You may serve the soup, Alfonz,' he added.
'Look, Chiddy, you're not a pirate, are you?' said Teppic, desperately.
'Is that what's been worrying you?' Chidder grinned his lazy grin.
It wasn't everything that Teppic had been worrying about, but it had been jockeying for top position. He nodded.
'No, we're not. We just prefer to, er, avoid paperwork wherever possible. You know? We don't like people to have all the worry of having to know everything we do.'
'Only there's all the clothes-'
'Ah. We get attacked by pirates a fair amount. That's why father had the Unnamed built. It always surprises them. And the whole thing is morally sound. We get their ship, their booty, and any prisoners they may have get rescued and given a ride home at competitive rates.'
'What do you do with the pirates?'
Chidder glanced at Alfonz.
'That depends on future employment prospects,' he said. 'Father always says that a man down on his luck should be offered a helping hand. On terms, that is. How's the king business?'
Teppic told him. Chidder listened intently, swilling the wine around in his glass.
'So that's it,' he said at last. 'We heard there was going to be a war. That's why we're sailing tonight.'
'I don't blame you,' said Teppic.
'No, I mean to get the trade organised. With both sides, naturally, because we're strictly impartial. The weapons produced on this continent are really quite shocking. Down-right dangerous. You should come with us, too. You're a very valuable person.'
'Never felt more valueless than right now,' said Teppic despondently.
Chidder looked at him in amazement.
'But you're a king!' he said.
'Well, yes, but-'
'Of a country which technically still exists, but isn't actually reachable by mortal man?'
'Sadly so.'
'And you can pass laws about, well, currency and taxation, yes?'
'I suppose so, but-'
'And you don't think you're valuable? Good grief, Tep, our accountants can probably think up fifty different ways to . . . well, my hands go damp just to think about it. Father will probably ask to move our head office there, for a start.'
'Chidder, I explained. You know it. No-one can get in,' said Teppic.
'That doesn't matter.'
'Doesn't matter?'
'No, because we'll just make Ankh our main branch office and pay our taxes in wherever the place is. All we need is an official address in, I don't know, the Avenue of the Pyramids or something. Take my tip and don't give in on anything until father gives you a seat on the board. You're royal, anyway, that's always impressive . .
Chidder chattered on. Teppic felt his clothes growing hotter. So this was it. You lost your kingdom, and then it was worth more because it was a tax haven, and you took a seat on the board, whatever that was, and that made it all right.
Ptraci defused the situation by grabbing Alfonz's arm as he was serving the pheasant.
'The Congress of The Friendly Dog and the Two Small Biscuits!' she exclaimed, examining the intricate tattoo. 'You hardly ever see that these days. Isn't it well done? You can even make out the yoghurt.'
Alfonz froze, and then blushed. Watching the glow spread across the great scarred head was like watching sunrise over a mountain range.
'What's the one on your other arm?'
Alfonz, who looked as though his past jobs had included being a battering ram, murmured something and, very shyly, showed her his forearm.
''S'not really suitable for ladies,' he whispered.
Ptraci brushed aside the wiry hair like a keen explorer, while Chidder stared at her with his mouth hanging open.
'Oh, I know that one,' she said dismissively. 'That's out of 130 Days of Pseudopolis. It's physically impossible.' She let go of the arm, and turned back to her meal. After a moment she looked up at Teppic and Chidder.
'Don't mind me,' she said brightly. 'Do go on.
'Alfonz, please go and put a proper shirt on,' said Chidder, hoarsely.
Alfonz backed away, staring at his arm.
'Er. What was I, er, saying?' said Chidder. 'Sorry. Lost the thread. Er. Have some more wine, Tep?'
Ptraci didn't just derail the train of thought, she ripped up the rails, burned the stations and melted the bridges for scrap. And so the dinner trailed off into beef pie, fresh peaches, crystallised sea urchins and desultory small talk about the good old days at the Guild. They had been three months ago. It seemed like a lifetime. Three months in the Old Kingdom was a lifetime.
After some time Ptraci yawned and went to her cabin, leaving the two of them alone with a fresh bottle of wine. Chidder watched her go in awed silence.
'Are there many like her back at your place?' he said.
'I don't know,' Teppic admitted. 'There could be. Usually they lie around the place peeling grapes or waving fans.'
'She's amazing. She'll take them by storm in Ankh, you know. With a figure like that and a mind like . . .' He hesitated. 'Is she . . . ? I mean, are you two . . .
'No,' said Teppic.
'She's very attractive.'
'Yes,' said Teppic.
'A sort of cross between a temple dancer and a bandsaw.' They took their glasses and went up on deck, where a few lights from the city paled against the brilliance of the stars. The water was flat calm, almost oily.
Teppic's head was beginning to spin slowly. The desert, the sun, two gloss coats of Ephebian retsina on his stomach lining and a bottle of wine were getting together to beat up his synapses.
'I mus' say,' he managed, leaning on the rail, 'you're doing all right for yourself.'
'It's okay,' said Chidder. 'Commerce is quite interesting. Building up markets, you know. The cut and thrust of competition in the privateering sector. You ought to come in with us, boy. It's where the future lies, my father says. Not with wizards and kings, but with enterprising people who can afford to hire them. No offence intended, you understand.'
'We're all that's left,' said Teppic to his wine glass. 'Out of the whole kingdom. Me, her, and a camel that smells like an old carpet. An ancient kingdom, lost.'
'Good job it wasn't a new one,' said Chidder. 'At least people got some wear out of it.'
'You don't know what it's like,' said Teppic. 'It's like a whole great pyramid. But upside down, you understand? All that history, all those ancestors, all the people, all funnelling down to me. Right at the bottom.'
He slumped on to a coil of rope as Chidder passed the bottle back and said, 'It makes you think, doesn't it? There's all these lost cities and kingdoms around. Like Ee, in the Great Nef. Whole countries, just gone. Just out there somewhere. Maybe people started mucking about with geometry, what do you say?'
Teppic snored.
After some moments Chidder swayed forward, dropped the empty bottle over the side, it went plunk — and for a few seconds a stream of bubbles disturbed the flat calm — and staggered off to bed.
Teppic dreamed.
And in his dream he was standing on a high place, but unsteadily, because he was balancing on the shoulders of his father and mother, and below them he could make out his grandparents, and below them his ancestors stretching away and out in a vast, all right, a vast pyramid of humanity whose base was lost in clouds.
He could hear the murmur of shouted orders and instructions floating up to him.
If you do nothing, we shall never have been.
'This is just a dream,' he said, and stepped out of it into a palace where a small, dark man in a loincloth was sitting on a stone bench, eating figs.
'Of course it's a dream,' he said. 'The world is the dream of the Creator. It's all dreams, different kinds of dreams. They're supposed to tell you things. Like: don't eat lobster last thing at night. Stuff like that. Have you had the one about the seven cows?'
'Yes,' said Teppic, looking around. He'd dreamed quite good architecture. 'One of them was playing a trombone.'
'It was smoking a cigar in my day. Well-known ancestral dream, that dream.'
'What does it mean?'
The little man picked a seed from between his teeth.
'Search me,' he said. 'I'd give my right arm to find out. I don't think we've met, by the way. I'm Khuft. I founded this kingdom. You dream a good fig.'
'I'm dreaming you, too?'
'Damn right. I had a vocabulary of eight hundred words, do you think I'd really be talking like this? If you're expecting a bit of helpful ancestral advice, forget it. This is a dream. I can't tell you anything you don't know yourself.'
'You're the founder?'
'That's me.'
'I . . . thought you'd be different,' said Teppic.
'How d'you mean?'
'Well . . . on the statue . .
Khuft waved a hand impatiently.
'That's just public relations,' he said. 'I mean, look at me. Do I look patriarchal?'
Teppic gave him a critical appraisal. 'Not in that loincloth,' he admitted. 'It's a bit, well, ragged.'
'It's got years of wear left in it,' said Khuft.
'Still, I expect it's all you could grab when you were fleeing from persecution,' said Teppic, anxious to show an understanding nature.
Khuft took another fig and give him a lopsided look. 'How's that again?'
'You were being persecuted,' said Teppic. 'That's why you fled into the desert.'
'Oh, yes. You're right. Damn right. I was being persecuted for my beliefs.'
'That's terrible,' said Teppic.
Khuft spat. 'Damn right. I believed people wouldn't notice I'd sold them camels with plaster teeth until I was well out of town.'
It took a little while for this to sink in, but it managed it with all the aplomb of a concrete block in a quicksand.
'You're a criminal?' said Teppic.
'Well, criminal's a dirty word, know what I mean?' said the little ancestor. 'I'd prefer entrepreneur. I was ahead of my time, that's my trouble.'
'And you were running away?' said Teppic weakly.
'It wouldn't,' said Khuft, 'have been a good idea to hang about.'
'"And Khuft the camel herder became lost in the Desert, and there opened before him, as a Gift from the Gods, a Valley flowing with Milk and Honey»,' quoted Teppic, in a hollow voice. He added, 'I used to think it must have been awfully sticky.'
'There I was, dying of thirst, all the camels kicking up a din, yelling for water, next minute — whoosh — a bloody great river valley, reed beds, hippos, the whole thing. Out of nowhere. I nearly got knocked down in the stampede.'
'No!' said Teppic. 'It wasn't like that! The gods of the valley took pity on you and showed you the way in, didn't they?' He shut up, surprised at the tones of pleading in his own voice.
Khuft sneered. 'Oh, yes? And I just happened to stumble across a hundred miles of river in the middle of the desert that everyone else had missed. Easy thing to miss, a hundred miles of river valley in the middle of a desert, isn't it? Not that I was going to look a gift camel in the mouth, you understand, I went and brought my family and the rest of the lads in soon enough. Never looked back.'
'One minute it wasn't there, the next minute it was?' said Teppic.
'Right enough. Hard to believe, isn't it?'
'No,' said Teppic. 'No. Not really.' Khuft poked him with a wrinkled finger. 'I always reckoned it was the camels that did it,' he said. 'I always thought they sort of called it into place, like it was sort of potentially there but not quite, and it needed just that little bit of effort to make it real. Funny things, camels.'
'I know.'
'Odder than gods. Something the matter?'
'Sorry,' said Teppic, 'it's just that this is all a bit of a shock. I mean, I thought we were really royal. I mean, we're more royal than anyone.
Khuft picked a fig seed from between two blackened stumps which, because they were in his mouth, probably had to be called his teeth. Then he spat.
'That's up to you,' he said, and vanished.
Teppic walked through the necropolis, the pyramids a saw— edged skyline against the night. The sky was the arched body of a woman, and the gods stood around the horizon. They didn't look like the gods that had been painted on the walls for thousands of years. They looked worse. They looked older than Time. After all, the gods hardly ever meddled in the affairs of men. But other things were proverbial for it.
'What can I do? I'm only human,' he said aloud.
Someone said, Not all of you.
Teppic awoke, to the screaming of seagulls.
Alfonz, who was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and the expression of one who never means to take it off again, ever, was helping several other men unfurl one of Unnamed's sails. He looked down at Teppic in his bed of rope and gave him a nod.
They were moving. Teppic sat up, and saw the dock-side of Ephebe slipping silently away in the grey morning light.
He stood up unsteadily, groaned, clutched at his head, took a run and dived over the rail.
Heme Krona, owner of the Camels-R-Us livery stable, walked slowly around You Bastard, humming. He examined the camel's knees. He gave one of its feet an experimental kick. In a swift movement that took You Bastard completely by surprise he jerked open the beast's mouth and examined his great yellow teeth, and then jumped away.
He took a plank of wood from a heap in the corner, dipped a brush in a pot of black paint, and after a moment's thought carefully wrote, ONE OWNER.
After some further consideration he added, LO MILEAGE. He was just brushing in GOOD RUNER when Teppic staggered in and leaned, panting, against the doorframe. Pools of water formed around his feet.
'I've come for my camel,' he said.
Krona sighed.
'Last night you said you'd be back in an hour,' he said. 'I'm going to have to charge you for a whole day's livery, right? Plus I gave him a rub down and did his feet, the full service. That'll be five cercs, okay emir?'
'Ah.' Teppic patted his pocket.
'Look,' he said. 'I left home in a bit of a hurry, you see. I don't seem to have any cash on me.'
'Fair enough, emir.' Krona turned back to his board. 'How do you spell YEARS WARENTY?'
'I will definitely have the money sent to you,' said Teppic. Krona gave him the withering smile of one who has seen it all — asses with bodywork re-haired, elephants with plaster tusks, camels with false humps glued on — and knows the festering depths of the human soul when it gets down to business.
'Pull the other one, rajah,' he said. 'It has got bells on.'
Teppic fumbled in his tunic.
'I could give you this valuable knife,' he said.
Krona gave it a passing glance, and sniffed.
'Sorry, emir. No can do. No pay, no camel.'
'I could give it to you point first,' said Teppic desperately, knowing that the mere threat would get him expelled from the Guild. He was also aware that as a threat it wasn't very good. Threats weren't on the syllabus at the Guild school.
Whereas Krona had, sitting on straw bales at the back of the stables, a couple of large men who were just beginning to take an interest in the proceedings. They looked like Alfonz's older brothers.
Every vehicle depot of any description anywhere in the multiverse has them. They're never exactly grooms or mechanics or customers or staff. Their function is always unclear. They chew straws or smoke cigarettes in a surreptitious fashion. If there are such things as newspapers around, they read them, or at least look at the pictures.
They started to watch Teppic closely. One of them picked up a couple of bricks and began to toss them up and down.
'You're a young lad, I can see that,' said Krona, kindly. 'You're just starting out in life, emir. You don't want trouble.' He stepped forward.
You Bastard's huge shaggy head turned to look at him. In the depths of his brain columns of little numbers whirred upwards again.
'Look, I'm sorry, but I've got to have my camel back,' said Teppic. 'It's life and death!'
Krona waved a hand at the two extraneous men.
You Bastard kicked him. You Bastard had very concise ideas about people putting their hands in his mouth. Besides, he'd seen the bricks, and every camel knew what two bricks added up to. It was a good kick, toes well spread, powerful and deceptively slow. It picked Krona up and delivered him neatly into a steaming heap of Augean stable sweepings.
Teppic ran, kicked away from the wall, grabbed You Bastard's dusty coat and landed heavily on his neck.
'I'm very sorry,' he said, to such of Krona as was visible. 'I really will have some money sent to you.'
You Bastard, at this point, was waltzing round and round in a circle. Krona's companions stayed well back as feet like plates whirred through the air.
Teppic leaned forward and hissed into one madly-waving ear.
'We're going home,' he said.
They had chosen the first pyramid at random. The king peered at the cartouche on the door.
'"Blessed is Queen Far-re-ptah»,' read Dil dutifully, «Ruler of the Skies, Lord of the Djel, Master of-« 'Grandma Pooney,' said the king. 'She'll do.' He looked at their startled faces. 'That's what I used to call her when I was a little boy. I couldn't pronounce Far-re-ptah, you see. Well, go on then. Stop gawking. Break the door down.'
Gern hefted the hammer uncertainly.
'It's a pyramid, master,' he said, appealing to Dil. 'You're not supposed to open them.'
'What do you suggest, lad? We stick a tableknife in the slot and wiggle it about?' said the king.
'Do it, Gern,' said Dil. 'It will be all right.'
Gern shrugged, spat on his hands which were, in fact, quite damp enough with the sweat of terror, and swung.
'Again,' said the king.
The great slab boomed as the hammer hit it, but it was granite, and held. A few flakes of mortar floated down, and then the echoes came back, shunting back and forth along the dead avenues of the necropolis.
'Again.'
Gern's biceps moved like turtles in grease.
This time there was an answering boom, such as might be caused by a heavy lid crashing to the ground, far away.
They stood in silence, listening to a slow shuffling noise from inside the pyramid.
'Shall I hit it again, sire?' said Gern. They both waved him into silence.
The shuffling grew closer.
Then the stone moved. It stuck once or twice, but never the less it moved, slowly, pivoting on one side so that a crack of dark shadow appeared. Dil could just make out a darker shape in the blackness.
'Yes?' it said.
'It's me, Grandma,' said the king.
The shadow stood motionless.
'What, young Pootle?' it said, suspiciously.
The king avoided Dil's face.
'That's right, Grandma. We've come to let you out.'
'Who're these men?' said the shadow petulantly. 'I've got nothing, young man,' she said to Gern. 'I don't keep any money in the pyramid and you can put that weapon away, it doesn't frighten me.'
'They're servants, Grandma,' said the king.
'Have they got any identification?' muttered the old lady.
'I'm identifying them, Grandma. We've come to let you out.'
'I was hammering hours,' said the late queen, emerging into the sunlight. She looked exactly like the king, except that the mummy wrappings were greyer and dusty. 'I had to go and have a lie down, come the finish. No-one cares about you when you're dead. Where're we going?'
'To let the others out,' said the king.
'Damn good idea.' The old queen lurched into step behind him.
'So this is the netherworld, is it?' she said. 'Not much of an improvement.' She elbowed Gern sharply. 'You dead too, young man?'
'No, ma'am,' said Gern, in the shaky brave tones of someone on a tightrope over the chasms of madness.
'It's not worth it. Be told.'
'Yes, ma'am.'
The king shuffled across the ancient pavings to the next pyramid.
'I know this one,' said the queen. 'It was here in my day. King Ashk-ur-men-tep. Third Empire. What's the hammer for, young man?'
'Please, ma'am, I have to hammer on the door, ma'am,' said Gern.
'You don't have to knock. He's always in.'
'My assistant means to smash the seals, ma'am,' said Dil, anxious to please.
'Who're you?' the queen demanded.
'My name is Dil, O queen. Master embalmer.'
'Oh, you are, are you? I've got some stitching wants seeing to.'
'It will be an honour and a privilege, O queen,' said Dil.
'Yes. It will,' she said, and turned creakily to Gern. 'Hammer away, young man!' she said.
Spurred by this, Gern brought the hammer round in a long, fast arc. It passed in front of Dil's nose making a noise like a partridge and smashed the seal into pieces.
What emerged, when the dust had settled, was not dressed in the height of fashion. The bandages were brown and mouldering and, Dil noticed with professional concern, already beginning to go at the elbows. When it spoke, it was like the opening of ancient caskets.
'I woket up,' it said. 'And theyre was noe light. Is thys the netherworld?'
'It would appear not,' said the queen.
'Thys is all?'
'Hardly worth the trouble of dying, was it?' said the queen. The ancient king nodded, but gently, as though he was afraid his head would fall off.
'Somethyng,' he said, 'must be done.'
He turned to look at the Great Pyramid, and pointed with what had once been an arm.
'Who slepes there?' he said.
'It's mine, actually,' said Teppicymon, lurching forward. 'I don't think we've met, I haven't been interred as yet, my son built it for me. It was against my better judgement, believe me.'
'It ys a dretful thyng,' said the ancient king. 'I felt its building. Even in the sleep of deathe I felt it. It is big enough to interr the worlde.'
'I wanted to be buried at sea,' said Teppicymon. 'I hate pyramids.'
'You do not,' said Ashk-ur-men-tep.
'Excuse me, but I do,' said the king, politely.
'But you do not. What you feel nowe is myld dislike. When you have lain in one for a thousand yeares,' said the ancient one, 'then you will begin to know the meaning of hate.'
Teppicymon shuddered.
'The sea,' he said. 'That's the place. You just dissolve away.
They set off towards the next pyramid. Gern led the way, his face a picture, possibly one painted late at night by an artist who got his inspiration on prescription. Dil followed. He held his chest high. He'd always hoped to make his way in the world and here he was now, walking with kings.
Well. Lurching with kings.
It was another nice day in the high desert. It was always a nice day, if by nice you meant an air temperature like an oven and sand you could roast chestnuts on.
You Bastard ran fast, mainly to keep his feet off the ground for as long as possible. For a moment as they staggered up the hills outside the olive-tree'd, field-patchworked oasis around Ephebe, Teppic thought he saw the Unnamed as a tiny speck on the azure sea. But it might have been just a gleam on a wave.
Then he was over the crest, into a world of yellow and umber. For a while scrubby trees held on against the sand, but the sand won and marched triumphantly onwards, dune after dune.
The desert was not only hot, it was quiet. There were no birds, none of the susurration of organic creatures busily being alive. At night there might have been the whine of insects, but they were deep under the sand against the scorch of day, and the yellow sky and yellow sand became an anechoic chamber in which You Bastard's breath sounded like a steam-engine.
Teppic had learned many things since he first went forth from the Old Kingdom, and he was about to learn one more. All authorities agree that when crossing the scorching desert it is a good idea to wear a hat.
You Bastard settled into the shambling trot that a prime racing camel can keep up for hours.
'I was hoping you could help me find it again?' said Teppic.
'I heard that you have some very unusual ideas in Ephebe.'
'It had to happen,' said Pthagonal. He pulled a pair of dividers from the folds of his robe and measured the pie thoughtfully. 'Is it a constant, do you think? It's a depressing concept.'
'Sorry?' said Teppic.
'The diameter divides into the circumference, you know. It ought to be three times. You'd think so, wouldn't you? But does it? No. Three point one four one and lots of other figures. There's no end to the buggers. Do you know how pissed off that makes me?'
'I expect it makes you extremely pissed off,' said Teppic politely.
'Right. It tells me that the Creator used the wrong kind of circles. It's not even a proper number! I mean, three point five, you could respect. Or three point three. That'd look right.' He stared morosely at the pie.
'Excuse me, you said something about it had to happen?'
'What?' said Pthagonal, from the depths of his gloom. 'Pie!' he added.
'What had to happen?' Teppic prompted.
'You can't mess with geometry, friend. Pyramids? Dangerous things. Asking for trouble. I mean,' Pthagonal reached unsteadily for his wine cup, 'how long did they think they could go on building bigger and bigger pyramids for? I mean, where did they think power comes from? I mean,' he hiccuped, 'you've been in that place, haven't you? Ever noticed how slow it all seems to be?'
'Oh, yes,' said Teppic flatly.
'That's because the time is sucked up, see? Pyramids. So they have to flare it off. Flarelight, they call it. They think it looks pretty! It's their time they're burning off!'
'All I know is the air feels as though it's been boiled in a sock,' said Teppic. 'And nothing actually changes, even if it doesn't stay the same.
'Right,' said Pthagonal. 'The reason being, it's past time. They use up past time, over and over again. The pyramids take all the new time. And if you don't let the pyramids flare, the power build up'll-'' he paused. 'I suppose,' he went on, 'that it'd escape along a wossname, a fracture. In space.'
'I was there before the kingdom, er, went,' said Teppic. 'I thought I saw the big pyramid move.'
'There you are then. It's probably moved the dimensions around by ninety degrees,' said Pthagonal, with the assurance of the truly drunk.
'You mean, so length is height and height is width?'
Pthagonal shook an unsteady finger.
'Nonono,' he said. 'So that length is height and height is breadth and breadth is width and width is a', he burped 'A 'time. S'nother dimessnon, see? Four of the bastards. Time's one of them. Ninety thingys to the other three. Degrees is what I mean. Only, only, it can't exist in this world like that, so the place had to sort of pop outside for a bit, see? Otherwise you'd have people getting older by walking sideways. He looked sadly into the depths of his cup. 'And every birthday you'd age another mile,' he added. Teppic looked at him aghast.
'That's time and space for you,' Pthagonal went on. 'You can twist them all over the place if you're not careful. Three point one four one. What sort of a number d'you call that?'
'It sounds horrible,' said Teppic.
'Damn right. Somewhere,' Pthagonal was beginning to sway on his bench, 'somewhere someone built a universe with a decent, respectable value of, of,' he peered blankly at the table, 'of pie. Not some damn number that never comes to an end, what kind of a'
'I meant, people getting older just by walking along!'
'I dunno, though. You could have a stroll back to where you were eighteen. Or wander up and see what you are going to look like when you're seventy. Travelling in width, though, that'd be the real trick.'
Pthagonal smiled vacantly and then, very slowly, keeled over into his dinner, some of which moved out of the way25. Teppic became aware that the philosophic din around him had subsided a bit. He stared along the line until he spotted Ibid.
'It won't work,' said Ibid. 'The Tyrant won't listen to us. Nor will the people. Anyway' he glanced at Antiphon — 'we're not all of one mind on the subject.'
'Damn Tsorteans need teaching a lesson,' said Antiphon sternly. 'Not room for two major powers on this continent. Damn bad sports, anyway, just because we stole their queen. Youthful high spirits, love will have its way'
Copolymer woke up.
'You've got it wrong,' he said mildly. 'The great war, that was because they stole our queen. What was her name now, face that launched a thousand camels, began with an A or a T or-'
'Did they?' shouted Antiphon. 'The bastards!'
'I'm reasonably certain,' said Copolymer.
Teppic sagged, and turned to Endos the Listener. He was still eating his dinner, with the air of one who is determined to preserve his digestion.
'Endos?'
The Listener laid his knife and fork carefully on either side of his plate.
'Yes?'
'They're really all mad, aren't they?' said Teppic wearily. 'That's extremely interesting,' said Endos. 'Do go on.' He reached shyly into his toga and brought forth a scrap of parchment, which he pushed gently towards Teppic.
'What's this?'
'My bill,' said Endos. 'Five minutes Attentive Listening. Most of my gentlemen have monthly accounts, but I understand you'll be leaving in the morning?'
Teppic gave up. He wandered away from the table and into the cold garden surrounding the citadel of Ephebe. White marble statues of ancient Ephebians doing heroic things with no clothes on protruded through the greenery and, here and there, there were statues of Ephebian gods. It was hard to tell the difference. Teppic knew that Dios had hard words to say about the Ephebians for having gods that looked just like people. If the gods looked just like everyone else, he used to say, how would people know how to treat them?
Teppic had rather liked the idea. According to legend the Ephebians' gods were just like humans, except that they used their godhood to get up to things humans didn't have the nerve to do. A favourite trick of Ephebian gods, he recalled, was turning into some animal in order to gain the favours of highly-placed Ephebian women. And one of them had reputedly turned himself into a golden shower in pursuit of his intended. All this raised interesting questions about everyday night life in sophisticated Ephebe.
He found Ptraci sitting on the grass under a poplar tree, feeding the tortoise. He gave it a suspicious look, in case it was a god trying it on. It did not look like a god. If it was a god, it was putting on an incredibly good act.
She was feeding it a lettuce leaf.
'Dear little ptortoise,' she said, and then looked up. 'Oh, it's you,' she said flatly.
'You didn't miss much,' said Teppic, sagging on to the grass. 'They're a bunch of maniacs. When I left they were smashing the plates.'
'That's ptraditional at the end of an Ephebian meal,' said Ptraci.
Teppic thought about this. 'Why not before?' he said.
'And then they probably dance to the sound of the bourzuki,' Ptraci added. 'I think it's a sort of dog.'
Teppic sat with his head in his hands.
'I must say you speak Ephebian well,' he said. 'Pthank you.'
'Just a trace of an accent, though.'
'Languages is part of the ptraining,' she said. 'And my grandmother told me that a ptrace of foreign accent is more fascinating.'
'We learned the same thing,' said Teppic. 'An assassin should always be slightly foreign, no matter where he is. I'm good at that part,' he added bitterly.
She began to massage his neck.
'I went down to the harbour,' she said. 'There's those things like big rafts, you know, camels of the sea'
'Ships,' said Teppic.
'And they go everywhere. We could go anywhere we want. The world is our pthing with pearls in it, if we like.'
Teppic told her about Pthagonal's theory. She didn't seem surprised.
'Like an old pond where no new water comes in,' she observed. 'So everyone goes round and round in the same old puddle. All the ptime you live has been lived already. It must be like other people's bathwater.'
'I'm going to go back.'
Her fingers stopped their skilled kneading of his muscles.
'We could go anywhere,' she repeated. 'We've got ptrades, we could sell that camel. You could show me that Ankh-Morpork place. It sounds interesting.'
Teppic wondered what effect Ankh-Morpork would have on the girl. Then he wondered what effect she would have on the city. She was definitely flowering. Back in the Old Kingdom she'd never apparently had any original thoughts beyond the choice of the next grape to peel, but since she was outside she seemed to have changed. Her jaw hadn't changed, it was still quite small and, he had to admit, very pretty. But somehow it was more noticeable. She used to look at the ground when she spoke to him. She still didn't always look at him when she spoke to him, but now it was because she was thinking about something else.
He found he kept wanting to say, politely, without stressing it in any way, just as a very gentle reminder, that he was king. But he had a feeling that she'd say she hadn't heard, and would he please repeat it, and if she looked at him he'd never be able to say it twice.
'You could go,' he said. 'You'd get on well. I could give you a few names and addresses.'
'And what would you do?'
'I dread to think what's going on back home,' said Teppic. 'I ought to do something.'
'You can't. Why ptry? Even if you didn't want to be an assassin there's lots of pthings you could do. And you said the man said it's not a place people could get into any more. I hate pyramids.'
'Surely there's people there you care about?'
Ptraci shrugged. 'If they're dead there's nothing I can do about it,' she said. 'And if they're alive, there's nothing I 'can do about it. So I shan't.'
Teppic stared at her in a species of horrified admiration. It was a beautiful summary of things as they were. He just couldn't bring himself to think that way. His body had been away for seven years but his blood had been in the kingdom for a thousand times longer. Certainly he'd wanted to leave it behind, but that was the whole point. It would have been there. Even if he'd avoided it for the rest of his life, it would have still been a sort of anchor.
'I feel so wretched about it,' he repeated. 'I'm sorry. That's all there is to it. Even to go back for five minutes, just to say, well, that I'm not coming back. That'd be enough. It's probably all my fault.'
'But there isn't a way back! You'll just hang around sadly, like those deposed kings you ptold me about. You know, with pthreadbare cloaks and always begging for their food in a high— class way. There's nothing more useless than a king without a kingdom, you said. Just think about it.'
They wandered through the sunset streets of the city, and towards the harbour. All streets in the city led towards the harbour.
Someone was just putting a torch to the lighthouse, which was one of the More Than Seven Wonders of the World and had been built to a design by Pthagonal using the Golden Rule and the Five Aesthetic Principles. Unfortunately it had then been built in the wrong place because putting it in the right place would have spoiled the look of the harbour, but it was generally agreed by mariners to be a very beautiful lighthouse and something to look at while they were waiting to be towed off the rocks.
The harbour below it was thronged with ships. Teppic and Ptraci picked their way past crates and bundles until they reached the long curved guard wall, harbour calm on one side, choppy with waves on the other. Above them the lighthouse flared and sparked.
Those boats would be going to places he'd only ever heard of, he knew. The Ephebians were great traders. He could go back to Ankh and get his diploma, and then the world would indeed be the mollusc of his choice and he had any amount of knives to open it with.
Ptraci put her hand in his.
And there'd be none of this marrying relatives business. The months in Djelibeybi already seemed like a dream, one of those circular dreams that you never quite seem able to shake off and which make insomnia an attractive prospect. Whereas here was a future, unrolling in front of him like a carpet.
What a chap needed at a time like this was a sign, some sort of book of instructions. The trouble with life was that you didn't get a chance to practise before doing it for real. You only— 'Good grief? It's Teppic, isn't it?' The voice was addressing him from ankle height. A head appeared over the stone of the jetty, quickly followed by its body. An extremely richly dressed body, one on which no expense had been spared in the way of gems, furs, silks and laces, provided that all of them, every single one, was black.
It was Chidder.
'What's it doing now?' said Ptaclusp.
His son poked his head cautiously over the ruins of a pillar and watched Hat, the Vulture-Headed God.
'It's sniffing around,' he said. 'I think it likes the statue. Honestly, dad, why did you have to go and buy a thing like that?'
'It was in a job lot,' said Ptaclusp. 'Anyway, I thought it would be a popular line.'
'With who?'
'Well, he likes it.'
Ptaclusp IIb risked another squint at the angular monstrosity that was still hopping around the ruins.
'Tell him he can have it if he goes away,' he suggested.
'Tell him he can have it at cost.'
Ptaclusp winced. 'At a discount,' he said. 'A special cut rate for our supernatural customers.
He stared up at the sky. From their hiding place in the ruins of the construction camp, with the Great Pyramid still humming like a powerhouse behind them, they'd had an excellent view of the arrival of the gods. At first he'd viewed them with a certain amount of equanimity. Gods would be good customers, they always wanted temples and statues, he could deal directly, cut out the middle man.
And then it had occurred to him that a god, when he was unhappy about the product, as it might be, maybe the plasterwork wasn't exactly as per spec, or perhaps a corner of the temple was a bit low on account of unexpected quicksand, a god didn't just come around demanding in a loud voice to see the manager. No. A god knew exactly where you were, and got to the point. Also, gods were notoriously bad payers. So were humans, of course, but they didn't actually expect you to die before they settled the account.
His gaze turned to his other son, a painted silhouette against the statue, his mouth a frozen O of astonishment, and Ptaclusp reached a decision.
'I've just about had it with pyramids,' he said. 'Remind me, lad. If we ever get out of here, no more pyramids. We've got set in our ways. Time to branch out, I reckon.'
'That's what I've been telling you for ages, dad!' said IIb. 'I've told you, a couple of decent aqueducts will make a tremendous-'
'Yes, yes, I remember,' said Ptaclusp. 'Yes. Aqueducts. All those arches and things. Fine. Only I can't remember where you said you have to put the coffin in.'
'Dad!'
'Don't mind me, lad. I think I'm going mad.'
I couldn't have seen a mummy and two men over there, carrying sledgehammers.
It was, indeed, Chidder.
And Chidder had a boat.
Teppic knew that further along the coast the Seriph of Al— Khali lived in the fabulous palace of the Rhoxie, which was said to have been built in one night by a genie and was famed in myth and legend for its splendour26. The Unnamed was the Rhoxie afloat, but more so. Its designer had a gilt complex, and had tried every trick with gold paint, curly pillars and expensive drapes to make it look less like a ship and more like a boudoir that had collided with a highly suspicious type of theatre.
In fact, you needed an assassin's eyes for hidden detail to notice how innocently the gaudiness concealed the sleekness of the hull and the fact, even when you added the cabin space and the holds together, that there still seemed to be a lot of capacity unaccounted for. The water around what Ptraci called the pointed end was strangely rippled, but it would be totally ridiculous to suspect such an obvious merchantman of having a concealed ramming spike underwater, or that a mere five minutes' work with an axe would turn this wallowing Alcdzar into something that could run away from nearly everything else afloat and make the few that could catch up seriously regret it.
'Very impressive,' said Teppic.
'It's all show, really,' said Chidder.
'Yes. I can see that.'
'I mean, we're poor traders.'
Teppic nodded. 'The usual phrase is «poor but honest traders»,' he said.
Chidder smiled a merchant's smile. 'Oh, I think we'll stick on «poor» at the moment. How the hell are you, anyway? Last we heard you were going off to be king of some place no-one's ever heard of. And who is this lovely young lady?'
'Her name' Teppic began.
'Ptraci,' said Ptraci.
'She's a hand-' Teppic began.
'She must surely be a royal princess,' said Chidder smoothly. 'And it would give me the greatest pleasure if she, if indeed both of you, would dine with me tonight. Humble sailor's fare, I'm afraid, but we muddle along, we muddle along.'
'Not Ephebian, is it?' said Teppic.
'Ship's biscuit, salt beef, that sort of thing,' said Chidder, without taking his eyes off Ptraci. They hadn't left her since she came on board.
Then he laughed. It was the old familiar Chidder laugh, not exactly without humour, but clearly well under the control of its owner's higher brain centres.
'What an astonishing coincidence,' he said. 'And us due to sail at dawn, too. Can I offer you a change of clothing? You both look somewhat, er, travel-stained.'
'Rough sailor clothing, I expect,' said Teppic. 'As befits a humble merchant, correct me if I'm wrong?'
In fact Teppic was shown to a small cabin as exquisitely and carefully furnished as a jewelled egg, where there was laid upon the bed as fine an assortment of clothing as could be found anywhere on the Circle Sea. True, it all appeared second-hand, but carefully laundered and expertly stitched so that the sword cuts hardly showed at all. He gazed thoughtfully at the hooks on the wall, and the faint patching on the wood which hinted that various things had once been hung there and hastily removed.
He stepped out into the narrow corridor, and met Ptraci. She'd chosen a red court dress such as had been the fashion in Ankh-Morpork ten years previously, with puffed sleeves and vast concealed underpinnings and ruffs the size of millstones.
Teppic learned something new, which was that attractive women dressed in a few strips of gauze and a few yards of silk can actually look far more desirable when fully clad from neck to ankle. She gave an experimental twirl.
'There are any amount of things like this in there,' she said. 'Is this how women dress in Ankh-Morpork? It's like wearing a house. It doesn't half make you sweaty.'
'Look, about Chidder,' said Teppic urgently. 'I mean, he's a good fellow and everything, but-'
'He's very kind, isn't he,' she agreed.
'Well. Yes. He is,' Teppic admitted, hopelessly. 'He's an old friend.'
'That's nice.'
One of the crew materialised at the end of the corridor and bowed them into the state cabin, his air of old retainership marred only by the criss-cross pattern of scars on his head and some tattoos that made the pictures in The Shuttered Palace look like illustrations in a DIY shelving manual. The things he could make them do by flexing his biceps could keep entire dockside taverns fascinated for hours, and he was not aware that the worst moment of his entire life was only a few minutes away.
'This is all very pleasant,' said Chidder, pouring some wine. He nodded at the tattooed man. 'You may serve the soup, Alfonz,' he added.
'Look, Chiddy, you're not a pirate, are you?' said Teppic, desperately.
'Is that what's been worrying you?' Chidder grinned his lazy grin.
It wasn't everything that Teppic had been worrying about, but it had been jockeying for top position. He nodded.
'No, we're not. We just prefer to, er, avoid paperwork wherever possible. You know? We don't like people to have all the worry of having to know everything we do.'
'Only there's all the clothes-'
'Ah. We get attacked by pirates a fair amount. That's why father had the Unnamed built. It always surprises them. And the whole thing is morally sound. We get their ship, their booty, and any prisoners they may have get rescued and given a ride home at competitive rates.'
'What do you do with the pirates?'
Chidder glanced at Alfonz.
'That depends on future employment prospects,' he said. 'Father always says that a man down on his luck should be offered a helping hand. On terms, that is. How's the king business?'
Teppic told him. Chidder listened intently, swilling the wine around in his glass.
'So that's it,' he said at last. 'We heard there was going to be a war. That's why we're sailing tonight.'
'I don't blame you,' said Teppic.
'No, I mean to get the trade organised. With both sides, naturally, because we're strictly impartial. The weapons produced on this continent are really quite shocking. Down-right dangerous. You should come with us, too. You're a very valuable person.'
'Never felt more valueless than right now,' said Teppic despondently.
Chidder looked at him in amazement.
'But you're a king!' he said.
'Well, yes, but-'
'Of a country which technically still exists, but isn't actually reachable by mortal man?'
'Sadly so.'
'And you can pass laws about, well, currency and taxation, yes?'
'I suppose so, but-'
'And you don't think you're valuable? Good grief, Tep, our accountants can probably think up fifty different ways to . . . well, my hands go damp just to think about it. Father will probably ask to move our head office there, for a start.'
'Chidder, I explained. You know it. No-one can get in,' said Teppic.
'That doesn't matter.'
'Doesn't matter?'
'No, because we'll just make Ankh our main branch office and pay our taxes in wherever the place is. All we need is an official address in, I don't know, the Avenue of the Pyramids or something. Take my tip and don't give in on anything until father gives you a seat on the board. You're royal, anyway, that's always impressive . .
Chidder chattered on. Teppic felt his clothes growing hotter. So this was it. You lost your kingdom, and then it was worth more because it was a tax haven, and you took a seat on the board, whatever that was, and that made it all right.
Ptraci defused the situation by grabbing Alfonz's arm as he was serving the pheasant.
'The Congress of The Friendly Dog and the Two Small Biscuits!' she exclaimed, examining the intricate tattoo. 'You hardly ever see that these days. Isn't it well done? You can even make out the yoghurt.'
Alfonz froze, and then blushed. Watching the glow spread across the great scarred head was like watching sunrise over a mountain range.
'What's the one on your other arm?'
Alfonz, who looked as though his past jobs had included being a battering ram, murmured something and, very shyly, showed her his forearm.
''S'not really suitable for ladies,' he whispered.
Ptraci brushed aside the wiry hair like a keen explorer, while Chidder stared at her with his mouth hanging open.
'Oh, I know that one,' she said dismissively. 'That's out of 130 Days of Pseudopolis. It's physically impossible.' She let go of the arm, and turned back to her meal. After a moment she looked up at Teppic and Chidder.
'Don't mind me,' she said brightly. 'Do go on.
'Alfonz, please go and put a proper shirt on,' said Chidder, hoarsely.
Alfonz backed away, staring at his arm.
'Er. What was I, er, saying?' said Chidder. 'Sorry. Lost the thread. Er. Have some more wine, Tep?'
Ptraci didn't just derail the train of thought, she ripped up the rails, burned the stations and melted the bridges for scrap. And so the dinner trailed off into beef pie, fresh peaches, crystallised sea urchins and desultory small talk about the good old days at the Guild. They had been three months ago. It seemed like a lifetime. Three months in the Old Kingdom was a lifetime.
After some time Ptraci yawned and went to her cabin, leaving the two of them alone with a fresh bottle of wine. Chidder watched her go in awed silence.
'Are there many like her back at your place?' he said.
'I don't know,' Teppic admitted. 'There could be. Usually they lie around the place peeling grapes or waving fans.'
'She's amazing. She'll take them by storm in Ankh, you know. With a figure like that and a mind like . . .' He hesitated. 'Is she . . . ? I mean, are you two . . .
'No,' said Teppic.
'She's very attractive.'
'Yes,' said Teppic.
'A sort of cross between a temple dancer and a bandsaw.' They took their glasses and went up on deck, where a few lights from the city paled against the brilliance of the stars. The water was flat calm, almost oily.
Teppic's head was beginning to spin slowly. The desert, the sun, two gloss coats of Ephebian retsina on his stomach lining and a bottle of wine were getting together to beat up his synapses.
'I mus' say,' he managed, leaning on the rail, 'you're doing all right for yourself.'
'It's okay,' said Chidder. 'Commerce is quite interesting. Building up markets, you know. The cut and thrust of competition in the privateering sector. You ought to come in with us, boy. It's where the future lies, my father says. Not with wizards and kings, but with enterprising people who can afford to hire them. No offence intended, you understand.'
'We're all that's left,' said Teppic to his wine glass. 'Out of the whole kingdom. Me, her, and a camel that smells like an old carpet. An ancient kingdom, lost.'
'Good job it wasn't a new one,' said Chidder. 'At least people got some wear out of it.'
'You don't know what it's like,' said Teppic. 'It's like a whole great pyramid. But upside down, you understand? All that history, all those ancestors, all the people, all funnelling down to me. Right at the bottom.'
He slumped on to a coil of rope as Chidder passed the bottle back and said, 'It makes you think, doesn't it? There's all these lost cities and kingdoms around. Like Ee, in the Great Nef. Whole countries, just gone. Just out there somewhere. Maybe people started mucking about with geometry, what do you say?'
Teppic snored.
After some moments Chidder swayed forward, dropped the empty bottle over the side, it went plunk — and for a few seconds a stream of bubbles disturbed the flat calm — and staggered off to bed.
Teppic dreamed.
And in his dream he was standing on a high place, but unsteadily, because he was balancing on the shoulders of his father and mother, and below them he could make out his grandparents, and below them his ancestors stretching away and out in a vast, all right, a vast pyramid of humanity whose base was lost in clouds.
He could hear the murmur of shouted orders and instructions floating up to him.
If you do nothing, we shall never have been.
'This is just a dream,' he said, and stepped out of it into a palace where a small, dark man in a loincloth was sitting on a stone bench, eating figs.
'Of course it's a dream,' he said. 'The world is the dream of the Creator. It's all dreams, different kinds of dreams. They're supposed to tell you things. Like: don't eat lobster last thing at night. Stuff like that. Have you had the one about the seven cows?'
'Yes,' said Teppic, looking around. He'd dreamed quite good architecture. 'One of them was playing a trombone.'
'It was smoking a cigar in my day. Well-known ancestral dream, that dream.'
'What does it mean?'
The little man picked a seed from between his teeth.
'Search me,' he said. 'I'd give my right arm to find out. I don't think we've met, by the way. I'm Khuft. I founded this kingdom. You dream a good fig.'
'I'm dreaming you, too?'
'Damn right. I had a vocabulary of eight hundred words, do you think I'd really be talking like this? If you're expecting a bit of helpful ancestral advice, forget it. This is a dream. I can't tell you anything you don't know yourself.'
'You're the founder?'
'That's me.'
'I . . . thought you'd be different,' said Teppic.
'How d'you mean?'
'Well . . . on the statue . .
Khuft waved a hand impatiently.
'That's just public relations,' he said. 'I mean, look at me. Do I look patriarchal?'
Teppic gave him a critical appraisal. 'Not in that loincloth,' he admitted. 'It's a bit, well, ragged.'
'It's got years of wear left in it,' said Khuft.
'Still, I expect it's all you could grab when you were fleeing from persecution,' said Teppic, anxious to show an understanding nature.
Khuft took another fig and give him a lopsided look. 'How's that again?'
'You were being persecuted,' said Teppic. 'That's why you fled into the desert.'
'Oh, yes. You're right. Damn right. I was being persecuted for my beliefs.'
'That's terrible,' said Teppic.
Khuft spat. 'Damn right. I believed people wouldn't notice I'd sold them camels with plaster teeth until I was well out of town.'
It took a little while for this to sink in, but it managed it with all the aplomb of a concrete block in a quicksand.
'You're a criminal?' said Teppic.
'Well, criminal's a dirty word, know what I mean?' said the little ancestor. 'I'd prefer entrepreneur. I was ahead of my time, that's my trouble.'
'And you were running away?' said Teppic weakly.
'It wouldn't,' said Khuft, 'have been a good idea to hang about.'
'"And Khuft the camel herder became lost in the Desert, and there opened before him, as a Gift from the Gods, a Valley flowing with Milk and Honey»,' quoted Teppic, in a hollow voice. He added, 'I used to think it must have been awfully sticky.'
'There I was, dying of thirst, all the camels kicking up a din, yelling for water, next minute — whoosh — a bloody great river valley, reed beds, hippos, the whole thing. Out of nowhere. I nearly got knocked down in the stampede.'
'No!' said Teppic. 'It wasn't like that! The gods of the valley took pity on you and showed you the way in, didn't they?' He shut up, surprised at the tones of pleading in his own voice.
Khuft sneered. 'Oh, yes? And I just happened to stumble across a hundred miles of river in the middle of the desert that everyone else had missed. Easy thing to miss, a hundred miles of river valley in the middle of a desert, isn't it? Not that I was going to look a gift camel in the mouth, you understand, I went and brought my family and the rest of the lads in soon enough. Never looked back.'
'One minute it wasn't there, the next minute it was?' said Teppic.
'Right enough. Hard to believe, isn't it?'
'No,' said Teppic. 'No. Not really.' Khuft poked him with a wrinkled finger. 'I always reckoned it was the camels that did it,' he said. 'I always thought they sort of called it into place, like it was sort of potentially there but not quite, and it needed just that little bit of effort to make it real. Funny things, camels.'
'I know.'
'Odder than gods. Something the matter?'
'Sorry,' said Teppic, 'it's just that this is all a bit of a shock. I mean, I thought we were really royal. I mean, we're more royal than anyone.
Khuft picked a fig seed from between two blackened stumps which, because they were in his mouth, probably had to be called his teeth. Then he spat.
'That's up to you,' he said, and vanished.
Teppic walked through the necropolis, the pyramids a saw— edged skyline against the night. The sky was the arched body of a woman, and the gods stood around the horizon. They didn't look like the gods that had been painted on the walls for thousands of years. They looked worse. They looked older than Time. After all, the gods hardly ever meddled in the affairs of men. But other things were proverbial for it.
'What can I do? I'm only human,' he said aloud.
Someone said, Not all of you.
Teppic awoke, to the screaming of seagulls.
Alfonz, who was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and the expression of one who never means to take it off again, ever, was helping several other men unfurl one of Unnamed's sails. He looked down at Teppic in his bed of rope and gave him a nod.
They were moving. Teppic sat up, and saw the dock-side of Ephebe slipping silently away in the grey morning light.
He stood up unsteadily, groaned, clutched at his head, took a run and dived over the rail.
Heme Krona, owner of the Camels-R-Us livery stable, walked slowly around You Bastard, humming. He examined the camel's knees. He gave one of its feet an experimental kick. In a swift movement that took You Bastard completely by surprise he jerked open the beast's mouth and examined his great yellow teeth, and then jumped away.
He took a plank of wood from a heap in the corner, dipped a brush in a pot of black paint, and after a moment's thought carefully wrote, ONE OWNER.
After some further consideration he added, LO MILEAGE. He was just brushing in GOOD RUNER when Teppic staggered in and leaned, panting, against the doorframe. Pools of water formed around his feet.
'I've come for my camel,' he said.
Krona sighed.
'Last night you said you'd be back in an hour,' he said. 'I'm going to have to charge you for a whole day's livery, right? Plus I gave him a rub down and did his feet, the full service. That'll be five cercs, okay emir?'
'Ah.' Teppic patted his pocket.
'Look,' he said. 'I left home in a bit of a hurry, you see. I don't seem to have any cash on me.'
'Fair enough, emir.' Krona turned back to his board. 'How do you spell YEARS WARENTY?'
'I will definitely have the money sent to you,' said Teppic. Krona gave him the withering smile of one who has seen it all — asses with bodywork re-haired, elephants with plaster tusks, camels with false humps glued on — and knows the festering depths of the human soul when it gets down to business.
'Pull the other one, rajah,' he said. 'It has got bells on.'
Teppic fumbled in his tunic.
'I could give you this valuable knife,' he said.
Krona gave it a passing glance, and sniffed.
'Sorry, emir. No can do. No pay, no camel.'
'I could give it to you point first,' said Teppic desperately, knowing that the mere threat would get him expelled from the Guild. He was also aware that as a threat it wasn't very good. Threats weren't on the syllabus at the Guild school.
Whereas Krona had, sitting on straw bales at the back of the stables, a couple of large men who were just beginning to take an interest in the proceedings. They looked like Alfonz's older brothers.
Every vehicle depot of any description anywhere in the multiverse has them. They're never exactly grooms or mechanics or customers or staff. Their function is always unclear. They chew straws or smoke cigarettes in a surreptitious fashion. If there are such things as newspapers around, they read them, or at least look at the pictures.
They started to watch Teppic closely. One of them picked up a couple of bricks and began to toss them up and down.
'You're a young lad, I can see that,' said Krona, kindly. 'You're just starting out in life, emir. You don't want trouble.' He stepped forward.
You Bastard's huge shaggy head turned to look at him. In the depths of his brain columns of little numbers whirred upwards again.
'Look, I'm sorry, but I've got to have my camel back,' said Teppic. 'It's life and death!'
Krona waved a hand at the two extraneous men.
You Bastard kicked him. You Bastard had very concise ideas about people putting their hands in his mouth. Besides, he'd seen the bricks, and every camel knew what two bricks added up to. It was a good kick, toes well spread, powerful and deceptively slow. It picked Krona up and delivered him neatly into a steaming heap of Augean stable sweepings.
Teppic ran, kicked away from the wall, grabbed You Bastard's dusty coat and landed heavily on his neck.
'I'm very sorry,' he said, to such of Krona as was visible. 'I really will have some money sent to you.'
You Bastard, at this point, was waltzing round and round in a circle. Krona's companions stayed well back as feet like plates whirred through the air.
Teppic leaned forward and hissed into one madly-waving ear.
'We're going home,' he said.
They had chosen the first pyramid at random. The king peered at the cartouche on the door.
'"Blessed is Queen Far-re-ptah»,' read Dil dutifully, «Ruler of the Skies, Lord of the Djel, Master of-« 'Grandma Pooney,' said the king. 'She'll do.' He looked at their startled faces. 'That's what I used to call her when I was a little boy. I couldn't pronounce Far-re-ptah, you see. Well, go on then. Stop gawking. Break the door down.'
Gern hefted the hammer uncertainly.
'It's a pyramid, master,' he said, appealing to Dil. 'You're not supposed to open them.'
'What do you suggest, lad? We stick a tableknife in the slot and wiggle it about?' said the king.
'Do it, Gern,' said Dil. 'It will be all right.'
Gern shrugged, spat on his hands which were, in fact, quite damp enough with the sweat of terror, and swung.
'Again,' said the king.
The great slab boomed as the hammer hit it, but it was granite, and held. A few flakes of mortar floated down, and then the echoes came back, shunting back and forth along the dead avenues of the necropolis.
'Again.'
Gern's biceps moved like turtles in grease.
This time there was an answering boom, such as might be caused by a heavy lid crashing to the ground, far away.
They stood in silence, listening to a slow shuffling noise from inside the pyramid.
'Shall I hit it again, sire?' said Gern. They both waved him into silence.
The shuffling grew closer.
Then the stone moved. It stuck once or twice, but never the less it moved, slowly, pivoting on one side so that a crack of dark shadow appeared. Dil could just make out a darker shape in the blackness.
'Yes?' it said.
'It's me, Grandma,' said the king.
The shadow stood motionless.
'What, young Pootle?' it said, suspiciously.
The king avoided Dil's face.
'That's right, Grandma. We've come to let you out.'
'Who're these men?' said the shadow petulantly. 'I've got nothing, young man,' she said to Gern. 'I don't keep any money in the pyramid and you can put that weapon away, it doesn't frighten me.'
'They're servants, Grandma,' said the king.
'Have they got any identification?' muttered the old lady.
'I'm identifying them, Grandma. We've come to let you out.'
'I was hammering hours,' said the late queen, emerging into the sunlight. She looked exactly like the king, except that the mummy wrappings were greyer and dusty. 'I had to go and have a lie down, come the finish. No-one cares about you when you're dead. Where're we going?'
'To let the others out,' said the king.
'Damn good idea.' The old queen lurched into step behind him.
'So this is the netherworld, is it?' she said. 'Not much of an improvement.' She elbowed Gern sharply. 'You dead too, young man?'
'No, ma'am,' said Gern, in the shaky brave tones of someone on a tightrope over the chasms of madness.
'It's not worth it. Be told.'
'Yes, ma'am.'
The king shuffled across the ancient pavings to the next pyramid.
'I know this one,' said the queen. 'It was here in my day. King Ashk-ur-men-tep. Third Empire. What's the hammer for, young man?'
'Please, ma'am, I have to hammer on the door, ma'am,' said Gern.
'You don't have to knock. He's always in.'
'My assistant means to smash the seals, ma'am,' said Dil, anxious to please.
'Who're you?' the queen demanded.
'My name is Dil, O queen. Master embalmer.'
'Oh, you are, are you? I've got some stitching wants seeing to.'
'It will be an honour and a privilege, O queen,' said Dil.
'Yes. It will,' she said, and turned creakily to Gern. 'Hammer away, young man!' she said.
Spurred by this, Gern brought the hammer round in a long, fast arc. It passed in front of Dil's nose making a noise like a partridge and smashed the seal into pieces.
What emerged, when the dust had settled, was not dressed in the height of fashion. The bandages were brown and mouldering and, Dil noticed with professional concern, already beginning to go at the elbows. When it spoke, it was like the opening of ancient caskets.
'I woket up,' it said. 'And theyre was noe light. Is thys the netherworld?'
'It would appear not,' said the queen.
'Thys is all?'
'Hardly worth the trouble of dying, was it?' said the queen. The ancient king nodded, but gently, as though he was afraid his head would fall off.
'Somethyng,' he said, 'must be done.'
He turned to look at the Great Pyramid, and pointed with what had once been an arm.
'Who slepes there?' he said.
'It's mine, actually,' said Teppicymon, lurching forward. 'I don't think we've met, I haven't been interred as yet, my son built it for me. It was against my better judgement, believe me.'
'It ys a dretful thyng,' said the ancient king. 'I felt its building. Even in the sleep of deathe I felt it. It is big enough to interr the worlde.'
'I wanted to be buried at sea,' said Teppicymon. 'I hate pyramids.'
'You do not,' said Ashk-ur-men-tep.
'Excuse me, but I do,' said the king, politely.
'But you do not. What you feel nowe is myld dislike. When you have lain in one for a thousand yeares,' said the ancient one, 'then you will begin to know the meaning of hate.'
Teppicymon shuddered.
'The sea,' he said. 'That's the place. You just dissolve away.
They set off towards the next pyramid. Gern led the way, his face a picture, possibly one painted late at night by an artist who got his inspiration on prescription. Dil followed. He held his chest high. He'd always hoped to make his way in the world and here he was now, walking with kings.
Well. Lurching with kings.
It was another nice day in the high desert. It was always a nice day, if by nice you meant an air temperature like an oven and sand you could roast chestnuts on.
You Bastard ran fast, mainly to keep his feet off the ground for as long as possible. For a moment as they staggered up the hills outside the olive-tree'd, field-patchworked oasis around Ephebe, Teppic thought he saw the Unnamed as a tiny speck on the azure sea. But it might have been just a gleam on a wave.
Then he was over the crest, into a world of yellow and umber. For a while scrubby trees held on against the sand, but the sand won and marched triumphantly onwards, dune after dune.
The desert was not only hot, it was quiet. There were no birds, none of the susurration of organic creatures busily being alive. At night there might have been the whine of insects, but they were deep under the sand against the scorch of day, and the yellow sky and yellow sand became an anechoic chamber in which You Bastard's breath sounded like a steam-engine.
Teppic had learned many things since he first went forth from the Old Kingdom, and he was about to learn one more. All authorities agree that when crossing the scorching desert it is a good idea to wear a hat.
You Bastard settled into the shambling trot that a prime racing camel can keep up for hours.