Pyramids

'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.



After a couple of miles Teppic saw a column of dust behind the next dune. Eventually they came up behind the main body of the Ephebian army, swinging along around half-a-dozen battle elephants, their helmet plumes waving in the oven breeze. They cheered on general principles as Teppic went past.



Battle elephants! Teppic groaned. Tsort went in for battle elephants, too. Battle elephants were the fashion lately. They weren't much good for anything except trampling on their own troops when they inevitably panicked, so the military minds on both sides had responded by breeding bigger elephants. Elephants were impressive.



For some reason, many of these elephants were towing great carts full of timber.



He jogged onwards as the sun wound higher and, and this was unusual, blue and purple dots began to pinwheel gently across the horizon.



Another strange thing was happening. The camel seemed to be trotting across the sky. Perhaps this had something to do with the ringing noise in his ears.



Should he stop? But then the camel might fall off.



It was long past noon when You Bastard staggered into the baking shade of the limestone outcrop which had once marked the edge of the valley, and collapsed very slowly into the sand. Teppic rolled off.



A detachment of Ephebians were staring across the narrow space towards a very similar number of Tsorteans on the other side. Occasionally, for the look of the thing, one of them waved a spear.



When Teppic opened his eyes it was to see the fearsome bronze masks of several Ephebian soldiers peering down at him. Their metal mouths were locked in sneers of terrible disdain. Their shining eyebrows were twisted in mortal anger.



One of them said, 'He's coming round, sarge.'



A metal face like the anger of the elements came closer, filling Teppic's vision.



'We've been out without our hat, haven't we, sonny boy,' it said, in a cheery voice that echoed oddly inside the metal. 'In a hurry to get to grips with the enemy, were we?'



The sky wheeled around Teppic, but a thought bobbed into the frying pan of his mind, seized control of his vocal chords and croaked: 'The camel!'



'You ought to be put away, treating it like that,' said the sergeant, waggling a finger at him. 'Never seen one in such a state.'



'Don't let it have a drink!' Teppic sat bolt upright, great gongs clanging and hot, heavy fireworks going off inside his skull. The helmeted heads turned towards one another.



'Gods, he must have something really terrible against camels,' said one of them. Teppic staggered upright and lurched across the sand to You Bastard, who was trying to work out the complex equation which would allow him to get to his feet. His tongue was hanging out, and he was not feeling well.



A camel in distress isn't a shy creature. It doesn't hang around in bars, nursing a solitary drink. It doesn't phone up old friends and sob at them. It doesn't mope, or write long soulful poems about Life and how dreadful it is when seen from a bedsitter. It doesn't know what angst is.



All a camel has got is a pair of industrial-strength lungs and a voice like a herd of donkeys being chainsawed.



Teppic advanced through the blaring. You Bastard reared his head and turned it this way and that, triangulating. His eyes rolled madly as he did the camel trick of apparently looking at Teppic with his nostrils.



He spat.



He tried to spit.



Teppic grabbed his halter and pulled on it.



'Come on, you bastard,' he said. 'There's water. You can smell it. All you have to do is work out how to get there!'



He turned to the assembled soldiers. They were staring at him with expressions of amazement, apart from those who hadn't removed their helmets and who were staring at him with expressions of metallic ferocity.



Teppic snatched a water skin from one of them, pulled out the stopper and tipped it on to the ground in front of the camel's twitching nose.



'There's a river here,' he hissed. 'You know where it is, all you've got to do is go there!'



The soldiers looked around nervously. So did several Tsorteans, who had wandered up to see what was going on.



You Bastard got to his feet, knees trembling, and started to spin around in a circle. Teppic clung on.



. . . let d equal 4, thought You Bastard desperately. Let a.d equal 90. Let not-d equal 45 . . .



'I need a stick!' shouted Teppic, as he was whirled past the sergeant. 'They never understand anything unless you hit them with a stick, it's like punctuation to a camel!'



'Is a sword any good?'



'No!'



The sergeant hesitated, and then passed Teppic his spear. He grabbed it point-end first, fought for balance, and then brought it smartly across the camel's flank, raising a cloud of dust and hair.