Terry Pratchett. Pyramids
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...noughts of eternity, he thought, sailing ponderously through themists of Time with every passenger travelling first class . . .
A few stars had been let out early. Teppic looked up at them. Perhaps,
he thought, there is life somewhere else. On the stars, maybe. If it's true
that there are billions of universes stacked alongside one another, the
thickness of a thought apart, then there must be people elsewhere.
But wherever they are, no matter how mightily they try, no matter how
magnificent the effort, they surely can't manage to be as godawfully stupid
as us. I mean, we work at it. We were given a spark of it to start with, but
over hundreds of thousands of years we've really improved on it.
He turned to Dios, feeling that he ought to repair a little bit of the
damage.
'You can feel the age radiating off them, can't you,' he said
conversationally.
'Pardon, sire?'
'The pyramids, Dios. They're so old.'
Dios glanced vaguely across the river. 'Are they?' he said. 'Yes, I
suppose they are.'
'Will you get one?' said Teppic.
'A pyramid?' said Dios. 'Sire, I have one already. It pleased one of
your forebears to make provision for me.'
'That must have been a great honour,' said Teppic. Dios nodded
graciously. The staterooms of forever were usually reserved for royalty.
'It is, of course, very small. Very plain. But it will suffice for my
simple needs.'
'Will it?' said Teppic, yawning. 'That's nice. And now, if you don't
mind, I think I'll turn in. It's been a long day.'
Dios bowed as though he was hinged in the middle. Teppic had noticed
that Dios had at least fifty finely-tuned ways of bowing, each one conveying
subtle shades of meaning. This one looked like No.3, I Am Your Humble
Servant.
'And a very good day it was too, if I may say so, sire. Teppic was lost
for words. 'You thought so?' he said.
'The cloud effects at dawn were particularly effective.'
'They were? Oh. Do I have to do anything about the sunset?'
'Your majesty is pleased to joke,' said Dios. 'Sunsets happen by
themselves, sire. Haha.'
'Haha,' echoed Teppic.
Dios cracked his knuckles. 'The trick is in the sunrise,' he said.
The crumbling scrolls of Knot said that the great orange sun was eaten
every evening by the sky goddess, What, who saved one pip in time to grow a
fresh sun for next morning. And Dios knew that this was so.
The Book of Staying in The Pit said that the sun was the Eye of Yay,
toiling across the sky each day in His endless search for his toenails.* (*
Lit. 'Dhar-ret-kar-mon', or 'clipping of the foot'. But some scholars say
that it should be 'Dar-rhet-kare- mhun'. lit. 'hot-air paint stripper'.) And
Dios knew that this was so.
The secret rituals of the Smoking Mirror held that the sun was in fact
a round hole in the spinning blue soap bubble of the goddess Nesh, opening
into the fiery real world beyond, and the stars were the holes that the rain
comes through. And Dios knew that this, also, was so.
Folk myth said the sun was a ball of fire which circled the world every
day, and that the world itself was carried through the everlasting void on
the back of an enormous turtle. And Dios also knew that this was so,
although it gave him a bit of trouble.
And Dios knew that Net was the Supreme God, and that Fon was the
Supreme God, and so were Hast, Set, Bin, Sot, Ic, Dhek, and Ptooie; that
Herpetine Triskeles alone ruled the world of the dead, and so did Syncope,
and Silur the Catfish-Headed God, and Orexis-Nupt.
Dios was maximum high priest to a national religion that had fermented
and accreted and bubbled for more than seven thousand years and never threw
a god away in case it turned out to be useful. He knew that a great many
mutually-contradictory things were all true. If they were not, then ritual
and belief were as nothing, and if they were nothing, then the world did not
exist. As a result of this sort of thinking, the priests of the Djel could
give mind room to a collection of ideas that would make even a quantum
mechanic give in and hand back his toolbox.
Dios's staff knocked echoes from the stones as he limped along in the
darkness down little-frequented passages until he emerged on a small jetty.
Untying the boat there, the high priest climbed in with difficulty,
unshipped the oars and pushed himself out into the turbid waters of the dark
Djel.
His hands and feet felt too cold. Foolish, foolish. He should have done
this before.
The boat jerked slowly into midstream as full night rolled over the
valley. On the far bank, in response to the ancient laws, the pyramids
started to light the sky.
Lights also burned late in the house of Ptaclusp Associates,
Necropolitan Builders to the Dynasties. The father and his twin Sons were
hunched over the huge wax designing tray, arguing.
'It's not as if they ever pay,' said Ptaclusp IIa. 'I mean it's not
just a case of not being able to, they don't seem to have grasped the idea.
At least dynasties like Tsort pay up within a hundred years or so. Why
didn't you-'
'We've built pyramids along the Djel for the last three thousand
years,' said his father stiffly, 'and we haven't lost by it, have we? No, we
haven't. Because the other kingdoms look to the Djel, they say there's a
family that really knows its pyramids, connysewers, they say we'll have what
they're having, if you please, with knobs on. Anyway, they're real royalty,'
he added, 'not like some of the ones you get these days - here today, gone
next millennium. They're half gods, too. You don't expect real royalty to
pay its way. That's one of the signs of real royalty, not having any money.'
'You don't get more royal than them, then. You'd need a new word,' said
IIa. We're nearly royal in that case.'
'You don't understand business, my son. You think it's all
book-keeping. Well, it isn't.'
'It's a question of mass. And the power to weight ratio.' They both
glared at Ptaclusp IIb, who was sitting staring at the sketches. He was
turning his stylus over and over in his hands, which were trembling with
barely-suppressed excitement.
'We'll have to use granite for the lower slopes,' he said, talking to
himself, 'the limestone wouldn't take it. Not with all the power flows.
Which will be, whooeee, they'll be big. I mean we're not talking razor
blades here. This thing could put an edge on a rolling pin.'
Ptaclusp rolled his eyes. He was only one generation into a dynasty and
already it was trouble. One son a born accountant, the other in love with
this new-fangled cosmic engineering. There hadn't been any such thing when
he was a lad, there was just architecture. You drew the plans, and then got
in ten thousand lads on time-and-a-half and double bubble at weekends. They
just had to pile the stuff up. You didn't have to be cosmic about it.
Descendants! The gods had seen fit to give him one son who charged you
for the amount of breath expended in saying 'Good morning', and another one
who worshipped geometry and stayed up all night designing aqueducts. You
scrimped and saved to send them to the best schools, and then they went and
paid you back by getting educated.
'What are you talking about?' he snapped.
'The discharge alone . . .' He pulled his abacus towards him and
rattled the pottery beads along the wires. 'Let's say we're talking twice
the height of the Executive model, which gives us a mass of. . . plus
additional coded dimensions of occult significance as per spec. . . we
couldn't do this sort of thing even a hundred years ago, you realise, not
with the primitive techniques we had then...' His finger became a blur.
IIa gave a snort and grabbed his own abacus.
'Limestone at two talents the ton. . .' he said. 'Wear and tear on
tools . . . masonry charges . . . demurrage . . . breakages . . . oh dear,
oh dear . . . on-cost . . . black marble at replacement prices . . .'
Ptaclusp sighed. Two abaci rattling in tandem the whole day long, one
changing the shape of the world and the other one deploring the cost.
Whatever happened to the two bits of wood and a plumbline?
The last beads clicked against the stops.
'It'd be a whole quantum leap in pyramidology,' said IIb, sitting back
with a messianic grin on his face.
'It'd be a whole kwa-' IIa began.
'Quantum,' said IIb, savouring the word.
'It'd be a whole quantum leap in bankruptcy,' said IIa.
'They'd have to invent a new word for that too.'
'It'd be worth it as a loss leader,' said IIb.
'Sure enough. When it comes to making a loss, we'll be in the lead,'
said IIa sourly.
'It'd practically glow! In millennia to come people will look at it and
say "That Ptaclusp, he knew his pyramids all right".'
'They'll call it Ptaclusp's Folly, you mean!'
By now the brothers were both standing up, their noses a few inches
apart.
'The trouble with you, sibling, is that you know the cost of everything
and the value of nothing!'
'The trouble with you is - is - is that you don't!'
'Mankind must strive ever upwards!'
'Yes, on a sound financial footing, by Khuft!'
'The search for knowledge-'
'The search for probity-'
Ptaclusp left them to it and stood staring out at the yard, where,
under the glow of torches, the staff were doing a feverish stocktaking.
It'd been a small business when father passed it on to him - just a
yard full of blocks and various sphinxes, needles, steles and other stock
items, and a thick stack of unpaid bills, most of them addressed to the
palace and respectfully pointing out that our esteemed account presented
nine hundred years ago appeared to have been overlooked and prompt
settlement would oblige. But it had been fun in those days. There was just
him, five thousand labourers, and Mrs Ptaclusp doing the books.
You had to do pyramids, dad said. All the profit was in mastabas, small
family tombs, memorial needles and general jobbing necropoli, but if you
didn't do pyramids, you didn't do anything. The meanest garlic farmer,
looking for something neat and long lasting with maybe some green marble
chippings but within a budget, wouldn't go to a man without a pyramid to his
name.
So he'd done pyramids, and they'd been good ones, not like some you saw
these days, with the wrong number of sides and walls you could put your foot
through. And yes, somehow they'd gone from strength to strength.
To build the biggest pyramid ever..
In three months.
With terrible penalties if it wasn't done on time. Dios hadn't
specified how terrible, but Ptaclusp knew his man and they probably involved
crocodiles. They'd be pretty terrible, all right...
He stared at the flickering light on the long avenues of statues,
including the one of bloody Hat the Vulture-Headed God of Unexpected Guests,
bought on the offchance years ago and turned down by the client owing to not
being up to snuff in the beak department and unshiftable ever since even at
a discount.
The biggest pyramid ever . . .
And after you'd knocked your pipes out seeing to it that the nobility
had their tickets to eternity, were you allowed to turn your expertise
homeward, i.e., a bijou pyramidette for self and Mrs Ptaclusp, to ensure
safe delivery into the Netherworld? Of course not. Even dad had only been
allowed to have a mastaba, although it was one of the best on the river, he
had to admit, that red-veined marble had been ordered all the way from
Howonderland, a lot of people had asked for the same, it had been good for
business, that's how dad would have liked it. . .
The biggest pyramid ever . . .
And they'd never remember who was under it.
It didn't matter if they called it Ptaclusp's Folly or Ptaclusp's
Glory. They'd call it Ptaclusp's.
He surfaced from this pool of thought to hear his sons still arguing.
If this was his posterity, he'd take his chances with 600-ton limestone
blocks. At least they were quiet.
'Shut up, the pair of you,' he said.
They stopped, and sat down, grumbling.
'I've made up my mind,' he said.
IIb doodled fitfully with his stylus. IIa strummed his abacus.
'We're going to do it,' said Ptaclusp, and strode out of the room. 'And
any son who doesn't like it will be cast into the outer darkness where there
is a wailing and a crashing of teeth,' he called over his shoulder.
The two brothers, left to themselves, glowered at each other.
At last IIa said, 'What does "quantum" mean, anyway?'
IIb shrugged. 'It means add another nought,' he said.
'Oh,' said IIa, 'is that all?'
All along the river valley of the Djel the pyramids were flaring
silently into the night, discharging the accumulated power of the day.
Great soundless flames erupted from their capstones and danced upwards,
jagged as lightning, cold as ice.
For hundreds of miles the desert glittered with the constellations of
the dead, the aurora of antiquity. But along the valley of the Djel the
lights ran together in one solid ribbon of fire.
It was on the floor and it had a pillow at one end. It had to be a bed.
Teppic found he was doubting it as he tossed and turned, trying to find
some part of the mattress that was prepared to meet him halfway. This is
stupid, he thought, I grew up on beds like this. And pillows carved out of
rock. I was born in this palace, this is my heritage, I must be prepared to
accept it . . .
I must order a proper bed and a feather pillow from Ankh, first thing
in the morning. I, the king, have said this shall be done.
He turned over, his head hitting the pillow with a thud.
And plumbing. What a great idea that was. It was amazing what you could
do with a hole in the ground.
Yes, plumbing. And bloody doors. Teppic definitely wasn't used to
having several attendants waiting on his will all the time, so performing
his ablutions before bed had been extremely embarrassing. And the people,
too. He was definitely going to get to know the people. It was wrong, all
this skulking in palaces.
And how was a fellow supposed to sleep with the sky over the river
glowing like a firework?
Eventually sheer exhaustion wrestled his body into some zone between
sleeping and waking, and mad images stalked across his eyeballs.
There was the shame of his ancestors when future archaeologists
translated the as-yet unpainted frescoes of his reign: '"Squiggle,
constipated eagle, wiggly line, hippo's bottom, squiggle": And in the year
of the Cycle of Cephnet the Sun God Teppic had Plumbing Installed and
Scorned the Pillows of his Forebears.'
He dreamed of Khuft - huge, bearded, speaking in thunder and lightning,
calling down the wrath of the heavens on this descendant who was betraying
the noble past.
Dios floated past his vision, explaining that as a result of an edict
passed several thousand years ago it was essential that he marry a cat.
Various-headed gods vied for his attention, explaining details of
godhood, while in the background a distant voice tried to attract his
attention and screamed something about not wanting to be buried under a load
of stone. But he had no time to concentrate on this, because he saw seven
fat cows and seven thin cows, one of them playing a trombone.
But that was an old dream, he dreamt that one nearly every night.
And then there was a man firing arrows at a tortoise . . .
And then he was walking over the desert and found a tiny pyramid, only
a few inches high. A wind sprang up and blew away the sand, only now it
wasn't a wind, it was the pyramid rising, sand tumbling down its gleaming
sides .
And it grew bigger and bigger, bigger than the world, so that at last
the pyramid was so big that the whole world was a speck in the centre.
And in the centre of the pyramid, something very strange happened.
And the pyramid grew smaller, taking the world with it. and vanished .
. .
Of course, when you're a pharaoh, you get a very high class of obscure
dream.
Another day dawned, courtesy of the king, who was curled up on the bed
and using his rolled-up clothes as a pillow. Around the stone maze of the
palace the servants of the kingdom began to wake up.
Dios's boat slid gently through the water and bumped into the jetty.
Dios climbed out and hurried into the palace, bounding up the steps three at
a time and rubbing his hands together at the thought of a fresh day laid out
before him, every hour and ritual ticking neatly into place. So much to
organise, so much to be needed for . . .
The chief sculptor and maker of mummy cases folded up his measure.
'You done a good job there, Master Dil,' he said.
Dil nodded. There was no false modesty between craftsmen. The sculptor
gave him a nudge. 'What a team, eh?' he said. 'You pickle 'em, I crate 'em.'
Dil nodded, but rather more slowly. The sculptor looked down at the wax
oval in his hands.
'Can't say I think much of the death mask, mind,' he said. Gern, who
was working hard on the corner slab on one of the Queen's late cats, which
he had been allowed to do all by himself, looked up in horror.
'I done it very careful,' he said sulkily.
'That's the whole point,' said the sculptor.
'I know,' said Dil sadly, 'it's the nose, isn't it.'
'It was more the chin.'
'And the chin.'
'Yes.'
'Yes.'
They looked in gloomy silence at the waxen visage of the pharaoh. So
did the pharaoh.
'Nothing wrong with my chin.'
'You could put a beard on it,' said Dil eventually. 'It'd cover a lot
of it, would a beard.'
'There's still the nose.'
'You could take half an inch off that. And do something with the
cheekbones.'
'Yes.'
'Yes.'
Gern was horrified. 'That's the face of our late king you're talking
about,' he said. 'You can't do that sort of thing! Anyway, people would
notice.' He hesitated. 'Wouldn't they?'
The two craftsmen eyed one another.
'Gern,' said Dil patiently, 'certainly they'll notice. But they won't
say anything. They expect us to, er, improve matters.'
'After all,' said the chief sculptor cheerfully, 'you don't think
they're going to step up and say "It's all wrong, he really had a face like
a short-sighted chicken", do you?'
'Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed, I must say.' The
pharaoh went and sat by the cat. It seemed that people only had respect for
the dead when they thought the dead were listening.
'I suppose,' said the apprentice, with some uncertainty, 'he did look a
bit ugly compared to the frescoes.'
'That's the point, isn't it,' said Dil meaningfully. Gern's big honest
spotty face changed slowly, like a cratered landscape with clouds passing
across it. It was dawning on him that this came under the heading of
initiation into ancient craft secrets.
'You mean even the painters change the-' he began.
Dil frowned at him.
'We don't talk about it,' he said.
Gern tried to force his features into an expression of worthy
seriousness.
'Oh,' he said. 'Yes. I see, master.'
The sculptor clapped him on the back.
'You're a bright lad, Gern,' he said. 'You catch on. After all, it's
bad enough being ugly when you're alive. Think how terrible it would be to
be ugly in the netherworld.'
King Teppicymon XXVII shook his head. We all have to look alike when
we're alive, he thought, and now they make sure we're identical when we're
dead. What a kingdom. He looked down and saw the soul of the late cat, which
was washing itself. When he was alive he'd hated the things, but just now it
seemed positively companionable. He patted it gingerly on its flat head. It
purred for a moment, and then attempted to strip the flesh from his hand. It
was on a definite hiding to nothing there.
He was aware with growing horror that the trio was now discussing a
pyramid. His pyramid. It was going to be the biggest one ever. It was going
to go on a highly fertile piece of sloping ground on a prime site in the
necropolis. It was going to make even the biggest existing pyramid look like
something a child might construct in a sand tray. It was going to be
surrounded by marble gardens and granite obelisks. It was going to be the
greatest memorial ever built by a son for his father.
The king groaned.
Ptaclusp groaned.
It had been better in his father's day. You just needed a bloody great
heap of log rollers and twenty years, which was useful because it kept
everyone out of trouble during Inundation, when all the fields were flooded.
Now you just needed a bright lad with a piece of chalk and the right
incantations.
Mind you, it was impressive, if you liked that kind of thing.
Ptaclusp IIb walked around the great stone block, tidying an equation
here, highlighting a hermetic inscription there. He glanced up and gave his
father a brief nod.
Ptaclusp hurried back to the king, who was standing with his retinue on
the cliff overlooking the quarry, the sun gleaming off the mask. A royal
visit, on top of everything else
'We're ready, if it please you, O arc of the sky,' he said, breaking
into a sweat, hoping against hope that Oh gods. The king was going to Put
Him at his Ease again.
He looked imploringly at the high priest, who with the merest twitch of
his features indicated that there was nothing he proposed to do about it.
This was too much, he wasn't the only one to object to this, Dil the master
embalmer had been subjected to half an hour of having to Talk about his
Family only yesterday, it was wrong, people expected the king to stay in the
palace, it was too . . .
The king ambled towards him in a nonchalant way designed to make the
master builder feel he was among friends. Oh no, Ptaclusp thought, he's
going to Remember my Name.
'I must say you've done a tremendous amount in nine weeks, it's a very
good start. Er. It's Ptaclusp, isn't it?' said the king.
Ptaclusp swallowed. There was no help for it now.
'Yes, O hand upon the waters,' he said, 'O fount of-'
'I think "your majesty" or "sire" will do,' said Teppic. Ptaclusp
panicked and glanced fearfully at Dios, who winced but nodded again.
'The king wishes you to address him-' a look of pain crossed his face -
'informally. In the fashion of the barba - of foreign lands.'
'You must consider yourself a very fortunate man to have such talented
and hard-working sons,' said Teppic, staring down at the busy panorama of
the quarry.
'I . . . will, O . . . sire,' mumbled Ptaclusp, interpreting this as an
order. Why couldn't kings order people around like in the old days? You knew
where you were then, they didn't go round being charming and treating you as
some sort of equal, as if you could make the sun rise too.
'It must be a fascinating trade,' Teppic went on.
'As your sire wishes, sire,' said Ptaclusp. 'If your majesty would just
give the word-'
'And how exactly does all this work?'
'Your sire?' said Ptaclusp, horrified.
'You make the blocks fly, do you?'
'Yes, O sire.'
'That is very interesting. How do you do it?'
Ptaclusp nearly bit through his lip. Betray Craft secrets? He was
horrified. Against all expectation, Dios came to his aid.
'By means of certain secret signs and sigils, sire,' he said, 'into the
origin of which it is not wise to inquire. It is the wisdom of-' he paused
'-the modems.'
'So much quicker than all that heaving stuff around, I expect,' said
Teppic.
'It had a certain glory, sire,' said Dios. 'Now, if I may suggest . . .
'Oh. Yes. Press on, by all means.'
Ptaclusp wiped his forehead, and ran to the edge of the quarry.
He waved a cloth.
All things are defined by names. Change the name, and you change the
thing. Of course there is a lot more to it than that, but paracosmically
that is what it boils down to.
Ptaclusp IIb tapped the stone lightly with his staff. The air above it
wavered in the heat and then, shedding a little dust, the block rose gently
until it bobbed a few feet off the ground, held in check by mooring ropes.
That was all there was to it. Teppic had expected some thunder, or at
least a gout of flame. But already the workers were clustering around
another block, and a couple of men were towing the first block down towards
the site.
'Very impressive,' he said sadly.
'Indeed, sire,' said Dios. 'And now, we must go back to the palace. It
will soon be time for the Ceremony of the Third Hour.
'Yes, yes, all right,' snapped Teppic. 'Very well done, Ptaclusp. Keep
up the good work.'
Ptaclusp bowed like a seesaw in flustered excitement and confusion.
'Very good, your sire,' he said, and decided to go for the big one.
'May I show your sire the latest plans?'
'The king has approved the plans already,' said Dios. 'And, excuse me
if I am mistaken, but it seems that the pyramid is well under construction.'
'Yes, yes, but,' said Ptaclusp, 'it occurred to us, this avenue here,
you see, overlooking the entrance, what a place, we thought, for a statue of
for instance Hat the Vulture-Headed God of Unexpected Guests at practically
cost-'
Dios glanced at the sketches.
'Are those supposed to be wings?' he said.
'Not even cost, not even cost, tell you what I'll do-' said Ptaclusp
desperately.
'Is that a nose?' said Dios.
'More a beak, more a beak,' said Ptaclusp. 'Look, O priest, how about-'
'I think not,' said Dios. 'No. I really think not.' He scanned the
quarry for Teppic, groaned, thrust the sketches into the builder's hands and
started to run.
Teppic had strolled down the path to the waiting chariots, looking
wistfully at the bustle around him, and paused to watch a group of workers
who were dressing a corner piece. They froze when they felt his gaze on
them, and stood sheepishly watching him.
'Well well,' said Teppic, inspecting the stone, although all he knew
about stonemasonry could have been chiselled on a sand grain. 'What a
splendid piece of rock.'
He turned to the nearest man, whose mouth fell open.
'You're a stonemason, are you?' he said. 'That must be a very
interesting job.'
The man's eyes bulged. He dropped his chisel. 'Erk,' he said.
A hundred yards away Dios's robes flapped around his legs as he pounded
down the path. He grasped the hem and galloped along, sandals flapping.
'What's your name?' said Teppic. 'Aaaargle,' said the man, terrified.
'Well, jolly good,' said Teppic, and took his unresisting hand and
shook it.
'Sire!' Dios bellowed. 'No!'
And the mason spun away, holding his right hand by the wrist, fighting
it, screaming . . .
Teppic gripped the arms of the throne and glared at the high priest.
'But it's a gesture of fellowship, nothing more. Where I come from-'
'Where you come from, sire, is here!' thundered Dios.
'But, good grief, cutting it off? It's too cruel!'
Dios stepped forward. Now his voice was back to its normal oil-smooth
tones.
'Cruel, sire? But it will be done with precision and care, with drugs
to take away the pain. He will certainly live.
'But why?'
'I did explain, sire. He cannot use the hand again without defiling it.
He is a devout man and knows this very well. You see, sire, you are a god,
sire.'
'But you can touch me. So can the servants!'
'I am a priest, sire,' said Dios gently. 'And the servants have special
dispensation.'
Teppic bit his lip.
'This is barbaric,' he said.
Dios's features did not move.
'It will not be done,' Teppic said. 'I am the king. I forbid it to be
done, do you understand?'
Dios bowed. Teppic recognised No.49, Horrified Disdain.
'Your wish will certainly be done, O fountain of all wisdom. Although,
of course, the man himself may take matters into, if you will excuse me, his
own hands.'
'What do you mean?' snapped Teppic.
'Sire, if his colleagues had not stopped him he would have done it
himself. With a chisel, I understand.'
Teppic stared at him and thought, I am a stranger in a familiar land.
'I see,' he said eventually.
He thought a little further.
'Then the - operation is to be done with all care, and the man is to be
given a pension afterwards, d'you see?'
'As you wish, sire.'
'A proper one, too.'
'Indeed, sire. A golden handshake, sire,' said Dios impassively.
'And perhaps we can find him some light job around the palace?'
'As a one-handed stonemason, sire?' Dios's left eyebrow arched a
fraction.
'As whatever, Dios.'
'Certainly, sire. As you wish. I will undertake to see if we are
currently short-handed in any department.'
Teppic glared at him. 'I am the king, you know,' he said sharply.
'The fact attends me with every waking hour, sire.'
'Dios?' said Teppic, as the high priest was leaving.
'Sire?'
'I ordered a feather bed from Ankh-Morpork some weeks ago. I suppose
you would not know what became of it?'
Dios waved his hands in an expressive gesture. 'I gather, sire, that
there is considerable pirate activity off the Khalian coast,' he said.
'Doubtless the pirates are also responsible for the non- appearance of
the expert from the Guild of Plumbers and Dunnikindivers?' Teppic said
sourly.* (* Dunnikindiver: a builder and cleaner of cesspits. A particularly
busy profession in Ankh- Morpork, where the water table is generally at
ground level, and one which attracts considerable respect. At least,
everyone passes by on the other side of the street when a dunnikindiver
walks by.)
'Yes, sire. Or possibly bandits, sire.'
'Or perhaps a giant two-headed bird swooped down and carried him off,'
said Teppic.
'All things are possible, sire,' said the high priest, his face
radiating politeness.
'You may go, Dios.'
'Sire. May I remind you, sire, that the emissaries from Tsort and
Ephebe will be attending you at the fifth hour.'
'Yes. You may go.'
Teppic was left alone, or at least as alone as he ever was, which meant
that he was all by himself except for two fan wavers, a butler, two enormous
Howonder guards by the door, and a couple of handmaidens.
Oh, yes. Handmaidens. He hadn't quite come to terms with the
handmaidens yet. Presumably Dios chose them, as he seemed to oversee
everything in the palace, and he had shown surprisingly good taste in the
matter of, for example, olive skins, bosoms and legs. The clothing these two
wore would between them have covered a small saucer. And this was odd,
because the net effect was to turn them into two attractive and mobile
pieces of furniture, as sexless as pillars. Teppic sighed with the
recollection of women in Ankh-Morpork who could be clothed from neck to
ankle in brocade and still cause a classroom full of boys to blush to the
roots of their hair.
He reached down for the fruit bowl. One of the girls immediately
grasped his hand, moved it gently aside, and took a grape.
'Please don't peel it,' said Teppic. 'The peel's the best part. Full of
nourishing vitamins and minerals. Only I don't suppose you've heard about
them, have you, they've only been invented recently,' he added, mainly to
himself. 'I mean, within the last seven thousand years,' he finished sourly.
So much for time flowing past, he thought glumly. It might do that
everywhere else, but not here. Here it just piles up, like snow. It's as
though the pyramids slow us down, like those things they used on the boat,
whatd'youcallem, sea anchors. Tomorrow here is just like yesterday, warmed
over.
She peeled the grape anyway, while the snowflake seconds drifted down.
At the site of the Great Pyramid the huge blocks of stone floated into
place like an explosion in reverse. They were flowing between the quarry and
the site, drifting silently across the landscape above deep rectangular
shadows.
'I've got to hand it to you,' said Ptaclusp to his son, as they stood
side by side in the observation tower. 'It's astonishing. One day people
will wonder how we did it.'
'All that business with the log rollers and the whips is old hat,' said
IIb. 'You-can throw them away.' The young architect smiled, but there was a
manic hint to the rictus.
It was astonishing. It was more astonishing than it ought to be. He
kept getting the feeling that the pyramid was . . .
He shook himself mentally. He should be ashamed of that sort of
thinking. You could get superstitious if you weren't careful, in this job.
It was natural for things to form a pyramid - well, a cone, anyway.
He'd experimented this morning. Grain, salt, . . . not water, though, that'd
been a mistake. But a pyramid was only a neat cone, wasn't it, a cone which
had decided to be a bit tidier.
Perhaps he'd overdone it just a gnat on the paracosmic measurements?
His father slapped him on the back.
'Very well done,' he repeated. 'You know, it almost looks as though
it's building itself.'
IIb yelped and bit his wrist, a childish trait that he always resorted
to when he was nervous. Ptaclusp didn't notice, because at that moment one
of the foremen was running to the foot of the tower, waving his ceremonial
measuring rod.
Ptaclusp leaned over.
'What?' he demanded.
'I said, please to come at once, O master!'
On the pyramid itself, on the working surface about halfway up, where
some of the detailed work on the inner chambers was in progress, the word
'impressive' was no longer appropriate. The word 'terrifying' seemed to fit
the bill.
Blocks were stacking up in the sky overhead in a giant, slow dance,
passing and re-passing, their mahouts yelling at one another and at the
luckless controllers down on the pyramid top, who were trying to shout
instructions above the noise.
Ptaclusp waded into the cluster of workers around the centre. Here, at
least, there was silence. Dead silence.
'All right, all right,' he said. 'What's going . . . oh.' Ptaclusp IIb
peered over his father's shoulder, and stuck his wrist in his mouth.
The thing was wrinkled. It was ancient. It clearly had once been a
living thing. It lay on the slab like a very obscene prune.
'It was my lunch,' said the chief plasterer. 'It was my bloody lunch. I
was really looking forward to that apple.'
'But it can't start yet,' whispered IIb. 'It can't form temporal nodes
yet, I mean, how does it know it's going to be a pyramid?'
'I put my hand down for it, and it felt just like . . . it felt pretty
unpleasant,' the plasterer complained.
'And it's a negative node, too,' added IIb. 'We shouldn't be getting
them at all.'
'Is it still there?' said Ptaclusp, and added, 'Tell me yes.' 'If more
blocks have been set into position it won't be,' said his son, looking
around wildly. 'As the centre of mass changes, you see, the nodes will be
pulled around.'
Ptaclusp pulled the young man to one side.
'What are you telling me now?' he demanded, in a camel whisper.* (*
Hoarse whispers are not suitable for a desert environment.)
'We ought to put a cap on it,' mumbled IIb. 'Flare off the trapped
time. Wouldn't be any problems then . . .'
'How can we cap it? It isn't damn well finished,' said Ptaclusp. 'What
have you been and gone and done? Pyramids don't start accumulating until
they're finished. Until they're pyramids, see? Pyramid energy, see? Named
after pyramids. That's why it's called pyramid energy.'
'It must be something to do with the mass, or something,' the architect
hazarded, 'and the speed of construction. The time is getting trapped in the
fabric. I mean, in theory you could get small nodes during construction, but
they'd be so weak you wouldn't notice; if you went and stood in one maybe
you'd become a few hours older or younger or-' he began to gabble.
'I recall when we did Kheneth XIV's tomb the fresco painter said it
took him two hours to do the painting in the Queen's Room, and we said it
was three days and fined him,' said Ptaclusp, slowly. 'There was a lot of
Guild fuss, I remember.'
'You just said that,' said IIb.
'Said what?'
'About the fresco painter. Just a moment ago.
'No, I didn't. You couldn't have been listening,' said Placlusp.
'Could have sworn you did. Anyway, this is worse than that business,'
said his son. 'And it's probably going to happen again.'
'We can expect more like it?'
'Yes,' said IIb. 'We shouldn't get negative nodes, but it looks as
though we will. We can expect fast flows and reverse flows and probably even
short loops. I'm afraid we can expect all kinds of temporal anomalies. We'd
better get the men off.'
'I suppose you couldn't work out a way we could get them to work in
fast time and pay them for slow time?' said Ptaclusp. 'It's just a thought.
Your brother's bound to suggest it.'
'No! Keep everyone off! We'll get the blocks in and cap it first!'
'All right, all right. I was just thinking out loud. As if we didn't
have enough problems . . .'
Ptaclusp waded into the cluster of workers around the centre. Here, at
least, there was silence. Dead silence.
'All right, all right,' he said. 'What's going . . . oh.' Ptaclusp IIb
peered over his father's shoulder, and stuck his wrist in his mouth.
The thing was wrinkled. It was ancient. It clearly had once been a
living thing. It lay on the slab like a very obscene prune.
'It was my lunch,' said the chief plasterer. 'It was my bloody lunch. I
was really looking forward to that apple.' Ptaclusp hesitated. This all
seemed very familiar. He'd had this feeling before. An overwhelming
sensation of reja vu*. (* Lit: 'I am going to be here again.') He met the
horrified gaze of his son. Together, dreading what they might see, they
turned around slowly. They saw themselves standing behind themselves,
bickering over something IIb was swearing that he had already heard.
He has, too, Ptaclusp realised in dread. That's me over there. I look a
lot different from the outside. And it's me over here, too. As well. Also.
It's a loop. Just like in the river, a tiny whirlpool, only it's in the
flow of time. And I've just gone round it twice.
The other Ptaclusp looked up at him.
There was a long, agonising moment of temporal strain, a noise like a
mouse blowing bubblegum, and the loop broke, and the figure faded.
'I know what's causing it,' muttered IIb indistinctly, because of his
wrist. 'I know the pyramid isn't complete, but it will be, so the effects
are sort of echoing backwards, dad, we ought to stop right now, it's too
big, I was wrong-
'Shut up. Can you work out where the nodes will form?' said Ptaclusp.
'And come away over here, all the lads are staring. Pull yourself together,
son.'
IIb instinctively put his hand to his belt abacus.
'Well, yes, probably,' he said. 'It's just a function of mass
distribution and-'
'Right,' said the builder firmly. 'Start doing it. And then get all the
foremen to come and see me.'
There was a glint like mica in Ptaclusp's eye. His jaw was squared like
a block of granite. Maybe it's the pyramid that's got me thinking like this,
he said, I'm thinking fast, I know it.
'And get your brother up here, too,' he added.
It is the pyramid effect. I'm remembering an idea I'm going to have.
Best not to think too hard about that. Be practical.
He stared around at the half-completed site. The gods knew we couldn't
do it in time, he said. Now we don't have to. We can take as long as we
like!
'Are you all right?' said IIb. 'Dad, are you all right?'
'Was that one of your time loops?' said Ptaclusp dreamily. What an
idea! No-one would ever beat them on a contract ever again, they'd win
bonuses for completion and it didn't matter how long it took!
'No! Dad, we ought-'
'But you're sure you can work out where these loops will occur, are
you?'
'Yes, I expect so, but-'
'Good.' Ptaclusp was trembling with excitement. Maybe they'd have to
pay the men more, but it would be worth it, and IIa would be bound to think
up some sort of scheme, finance was nearly as good as magic. The lads would
have to accept it. After all, they'd complained about working with free men,
they'd complained about working with Howondanians, they'd complained about
working with everyone except proper paid-up Guild members. So they could
hardly complain about working with themselves. IIb stepped back, and gripped
the abacus for reassurance. 'Dad,' he said cautiously, 'what are you
thinking about?' Ptaclusp beamed at him. 'Doppelgangs,' he said.
Politics was more interesting. Teppic felt that here, at least, he
could make a contribution.
Djelibeybi was old. It was respected. But it was also small and in the
sword-edged sense, which was what seemed to matter these days, had no power.
It wasn't always thus, as Dios told it. Once it had ruled the world by sheer
force of nobility, hardly needing the standing army of twenty-five thousand
men it had in those high days.
Now it wielded a more subtle power as a narrow state between the huge
and thrusting empires of Tsort and Ephebe, each one both a threat and a
shield. For more than a thousand years the kings along the Djel had, with
extreme diplomacy, exquisite manners and the footwork of a centipede on
adrenaline, kept the peace along the whole widdershins side of the
continent. Merely having existed for seven thousand years can be a
formidable weapon, if you use it properly.
'You mean we're neutral ground?' said Teppic.
'Tsort is a desert culture like us,' said Dios, steepling his hands.
'We have helped to shape it over the years. As for Ephebe-' He sniffed.
'They have some very strange beliefs.'
'How do you mean?'
'They believe the world is run by geometry, sire. All lines and angles
and numbers. That sort of thing, sire-' Dios frowned - 'can lead to some
very unsound ideas.'
'Ah,' said Teppic, resolving to learn more about unsound ideas as soon
as possible. 'So we're secretly on the side of Tsort, yes?'
'No. It is important that Ephebe remains strong.'
'But we've more in common with Tsort?'
'So we allow them to believe, sire.'
'But they are a desert culture?'
Dios smiled. 'I am afraid they don't take pyramids seriously, sire.'
Teppic considered all this.
'So whose side are we really on?'
'Our own, sire. There is always a way. Always remember, sire, that your
family was on its third dynasty before our neighbours had worked out, sire,
how babies are made.'
The Tsort delegation did indeed appear to have studied Djeli culture
assiduously, almost frantically. It was also clear that they hadn't begun to
understand it; they'd merely borrowed as many bits as seemed useful and then
put them together in subtly wrong ways. For example, to a man they employed
the Three-Turning-Walk, as portrayed on friezes, and only used by the Djeli
court on certain occasions. Occasional grimaces crossed their faces as their
vertebrae protested.
They were also wearing the Khruspids of Morning and the bangles of
Going Forth, as well as the kilt of Yet with, and no wonder even the maidens
on fan duty were hiding their smiles, matching greaves!* (* Some translation
is needed here. If a foreign ambassador to the Court of St James wore (out
of a genuine desire to flatter) a bowler hat, a claymore, a Civil War
breastplate, Saxon trousers and a Jacobean haircut, he'd create pretty much
the same impression.)
Even Teppic had to cough hurriedly. But then, he thought, they don't
know any better. They're like children.
And this thought was followed by another one which added, These
children could wipe us off the map in one hour.
Hot on the synapses of the other two came a third thought, which said:
It's only clothes, for goodness sake, you're beginning to take it all
seriously.
The group from Ephebe were more sensibly dressed in white togas. They
had a certain sameness about them, as if somewhere in the country there was
a little press that stamped out small bald men with curly white beards.
The two parties halted before the throne, and bowed.
'Halo,' said Teppic.
'His Greatness the King Teppicymon XXVIII, Lord of the Heavens,
Charioteer of the Wagon of the Sun, Steersman of the Barque of the Sun,
Guardian of the Secret Knowledge, Lord of the Horizon, Keeper of the Way,
the Flail of Mercy, the High-Born One, the Never-Dying King, bids you
welcome and commands you to take wine with him,' said Dios, clapping his
hands for a butler.
'Oh yes,' said Teppic. 'Do sit down, won't you?'
'His Greatness the King Teppicymon XXVIII, Lord of the Heavens,
Charioteer of the Wagon of the Sun, Steersman of the Barque of the Sun,
Guardian of the Secret Knowledge, Lord of the Horizon, Keeper of the Way,
the Flail of Mercy, the High-Born One, the Never-Dying King, commands you to
be seated,' said Dios.
Teppic racked his brains for a suitable speech. He'd heard plenty in
Ankh-Morpork. They were probably the same the whole world over.
'I'm sure we shall get on-'
'His Greatness the King Teppicymon XXVIII, Lord of the Heavens,
Charioteer of the Wagon of the Sun, Steersman of the Barque of the Sun,
Guardian of the Secret Knowledge, Lord of the Horizon, Keeper of the Way,
the Flail of Mercy, the High-Born One, the Never-Dying King, bids you
harken!' Dios boomed.
'-long history of friendship-'
'Harken to the wisdom of His Greatness the King Teppicymon XXVIII, Lord
of the Heavens, Charioteer of the Wagon of the Sun, Steersman of the Barque
of the Sun, Guardian of the Secret Knowledge, Lord of the Horizon, Keeper of
the Way, the Flail of Mercy, the High-Born One, the Never-Dying King!'
The echoes died away.
'Could I have a word with you a moment, Dios?'
The high priest leaned down.
'Is all this necessary?' hissed Teppic.
Dios's aquiline features took on the wooden expression of one who is
wrestling with an unfamiliar concept.
'Of course, sire. It is traditional,' he said, at last.
'I thought I was supposed to talk to these people. You know, about
boundaries and trade and so on. I've been doing a lot of thinking about it
and I've got several ideas. I mean, it's going to be a little difficult if
you're going to keep shouting.'
Dios gave him a polite smile.
'Oh no, sire. That has all been sorted out, sire. I met with them this
morning.'
'What am I supposed to do, then?' Dios made a slight circling motion
with his hand.
'Just as you wish, sire. It is normal to smile a little, and put them
at their ease.'
'Is that all'
'Sire could ask them whether they enjoy being diplomats, sire,' said
Dios. He met Teppic's glare with eyes as expressionless as mirrors.
'I am the king,' Teppic hissed.
'Certainly, sire. It would not do to sully the office with mere matters
of leaden state, sire. Tomorrow, sire, you will be holding supreme court. A
very fit office for a monarch, sire.'
'Ah. Yes.'
It was quite complicated. Teppic listened carefully to the case, which
was alleged cattle theft compounded by Djeli's onion-layered land laws. This
is what it should be all about, he thought. No-one else can work out who
owns the bloody ox, this is the sort of thing kings have to do. Now, let's
see, five years ago, he sold the ox to him, but as it turned out-
He looked from the face of one worried farmer to the other. They were
both clutching their ragged straw hats close to their chests, and both of
them wore the paralysed wooden expressions of simple men who, in pursuit of
their parochial disagreement, now found themselves on a marble floor in a
great room with their god enthroned before their very eyes. Teppic didn't
doubt that either one would cheerfully give up all rights to the wretched
creature in exchange for being ten miles away.
It's a fairly mature ox, he thought, time it was slaughtered, even if
it's his it's been fattening on his neighbour's land all these years, half
each would be about right, they're really going to remember this judgement .
He raised the Sickle of Justice.
'His Greatness the King Teppicymon XXVIII, Lord of the Heavens,
Charioteer of the Wagon of the Sun, Steersman of the Barque of the Sun,
Guardian of the Secret Knowledge, Lord of the Horizon, Keeper of the Way,
the Flail of Mercy, the High-Born One, the Never-Dying King, will give
judgement! Cower to the justice of His Greatness the King Tep-'
Teppic cut Dios off in mid-intone.
'Having listened to both sides of the case,' he said firmly, the mask
giving it a slight boom, 'and, being impressed by the argument and
counter-argument, it seems to us only just that the beast in question should
be slaughtered without delay and shared with all fairness between both
plaintiff and defendant.'
He sat back. They'll call me Teppic the Wise, he thought. The common
people go for this sort of thing.
The farmers gave him a long blank stare. Then, as if they were both
mounted on turntables, they turned and looked to where Dios was sitting in
his place on the steps in a group of lesser priests.
Dios stood up, smoothed his plain robe, and extended the staff.
'Harken to the interpreted wisdom of His Greatness the King Teppicymon
XXVIII, Lord of the Heavens, Charioteer of the Wagon of the Sun, Steersman
of the Barque of the Sun, Guardian of the Secret Knowledge, Lord of the
Horizon, Keeper of the Way, the Flail of Mercy, the High-Born One, the
Never...
