BOOK IV

The Book of 101 Things A Boy Can Do

Teppic had expected — what?

Possibly the splat of flesh hitting rock. Possibly, although this was on the very edge of expectation, the sight of the Old Kingdom spread out below him.

He hadn't expected chilly, damp mists.

It is now known to science that there are many more dimensions than the classical four. Scientists say that these don't normally impinge on the world because the extra dimensions are very small and curve in on themselves, and that since reality is fractal most of it is tucked inside itself. This means either that the universe is more full of wonders than we can hope to understand or, more probably, that scientists make things up as they go along.

But the multiverse is full of little dimensionettes, playstreets of creation where creatures of the imagination can romp without being knocked down by serious actuality. Sometimes, as they drift through the holes in reality, they impinge back on this universe, when they give rise to myths, legends and charges of being Drunk and Disorderly.

And it was into one of these that You Bastard, by a trivial miscalculation, had trotted.

Legend had got it nearly right. The Sphinx did lurk on the borders of the kingdom. The legend just hadn't been precise about what kind of borders it was talking about.

The Sphinx is an unreal creature. It exists solely because it has been imagined. It is well-known that in an infinite universe everything that can be imagined must exist somewhere, and since many of them are not things that ought to exist in a well-ordered space-time frame they get shoved into a side dimension. This may go some way to explaining the Sphinx's chronic bad temper, although any creature created with the body of a lion, bosom of a woman and wings of an eagle has a serious identity crisis and doesn't need much to make it angry.

So it had devised the Riddle.

Across various dimensions it had provided the Sphinx with considerable entertainment and innumerable meals.

This was not known to Teppic as he led You Bastard through the swirling mists, but the bones he crunched underfoot gave him enough essential detail.

A lot of people had died here. And it was reasonable to assume that the more recent ones had seen the remains of the earlier ones, and would therefore have proceeded stealthily. And that hadn't worked.

No sense in creeping along, then. Besides, some of the rocks that loomed out of the mists had a very distressing shape. This one here, for example, looked exactly like— 'Halt,' said the Sphinx.

There was no sound but the drip of the mist and the occasional sucking noise of You Bastard trying to extract moisture from the air.

'You're a sphinx,' said Teppic.

'The Sphinx,' corrected the Sphinx.

'Gosh. We've got any amount of statues to you at home.' Teppic looked up, and then further up. 'I thought you'd be smaller,' he added.

'Cower, mortal,' said the Sphinx. 'For thou art in the presence of the wise and the terrible.' It blinked. 'Any good, these statues?'

'They don't do you justice,' said Teppic, truthfully.

'Do you really think so? People often get the nose wrong,' said the Sphinx. 'My right profile is best, I'm told, and-' It dawned on the Sphinx that it was sidetracking itself. It coughed sternly.

'Before you can pass me, O mortal,' it said, 'you must answer my riddle.'

'Why?' said Teppic.

'What?' The Sphinx blinked at him. It hadn't been designed for this sort of thing.

'Why? Why? Because. Er. Because, hang on, yes, because I will bite your head off if you don't. Yes, I think that's it.'

'Right,' said Teppic. 'Let's hear it, then.'

The Sphinx cleared its throat with a noise like an empty lorry reversing in a quarry.

'What goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?' said the Sphinx smugly.

Teppic considered this.

'That's a tough one,' he said, eventually.

'The toughest,' said the Sphinx.

'Um.'

'You'll never get it.'

'Ah,' said Teppic.

'Could you take your clothes off while you're thinking? The threads play merry hell with my teeth.'

'There isn't some kind of animal that regrows legs that have been-'

'Entirely the wrong track,' said the Sphinx, stretching its claws.

'Oh.'

'You haven't got the faintest idea, have you?'

'I'm still thinking,' said Teppic.

'You'll never get it.'

'You're right.' Teppic stared at the claws. This isn't really a fighting animal, he told himself reassuringly, it's definitely over-endowed. Besides, its bosom will get in the way, even if its brain doesn't.

'The answer is: «A Man»,' said the Sphinx. 'Now, don't put up a fight, please, it releases unpleasant chemicals into the bloodstream.'

Teppic backed away from a slashing paw. 'Hold on, hold on,' he said. 'What do you mean, a man?'

'It's easy,' said the Sphinx. 'A baby crawls in the morning, stands on both legs at noon, and at evening an old man walks with a stick. Good, isn't it?'

Teppic bit his lip. 'We're talking about one day here?' he said doubtfully.

There was a long, embarrassing silence.

'It's a wossname, a figure of speech,' said the Sphinx irritably, making another lunge.

'No, no, look, wait a minute,' said Teppic. 'I'd like us to be very clear about this, right? I mean, it's only fair, right?'

'Nothing wrong with the riddle,' said the Sphinx. 'Damn good riddle. Had that riddle for fifty years, sphinx and cub.' It thought about this. 'Chick,' it corrected.

'It's a good riddle,' Teppic said soothingly. 'Very deep. Very moving. The whole human condition in a nutshell. But you've got to admit, this doesn't all happen to one individual in one day, does it?'

'Well. No,' the Sphinx admitted. 'But that is self-evident from the context. An element of dramatic analogy is present in all riddles,' it added, with the air of one who had heard the phrase a long time ago and rather liked it, although not to the extent of failing to eat the originator.

'Yes, but,' said Teppic crouching down and brushing a clear space on the damp sand, 'is there internal consistency within the metaphor? Let's say for example that the average life expectancy is seventy years, okay?'

'Okay,' said the Sphinx, in the uncertain tones of someone who has let the salesman in and is now regretfully contemplating a future in which they are undoubtedly going to buy life insurance.

'Right. Good. So noon would be age 35, am I right? Now considering that most children can toddle at a year or so, the four legs reference is really unsuitable, wouldn't you agree? I mean, most of the morning is spent on two legs. According to your analogy' he paused and did a few calculations with a convenient thighbone— 'only about twenty minutes immediately after 00.00 hours, half an hour tops, is spent on four legs. Am I right? Be fair.'

'Well-' said the Sphinx.

'By the same token you wouldn't be using a stick by six p.m. because you'd be only, er, 52,' said Teppic, scribbling furiously. 'In fact you wouldn't really be looking at any kind of walking aid until at least half past nine, I think. That's on the assumption that the entire lifespan takes place over one day which is, I believe I have already pointed out, ridiculous. I'm sorry, it's basically okay, but it doesn't work.'

'Well,' said the Sphinx, but irritably this time, 'I don't see what I can do about it. I haven't got any more. It's the only one I've ever needed.'

'You just need to alter it a bit, that's all.'

'How do you mean?'

'Just make it a bit more realistic.'

'Hmm.' The Sphinx scratched its mane with a claw.

'Okay,' it said doubtfully. 'I suppose I could ask: What is it that walks on four legs'

'Metaphorically speaking,' said Teppic.

'Four legs, metaphorically speaking,' the Sphinx agreed, 'for about-'

'Twenty minutes, I think we agreed.'

'Okay, fine, twenty minutes in the morning, on two legs***'

'But I think calling it in «the morning» is stretching it a bit,' said Teppic. 'It's just after midnight. I mean, technically it's the morning, but in a very real sense it's still last night, what do you think?'

A look of glazed panic crossed the Sphinx's face.

'What do you think?' it managed.

'Let's just see where we've got to, shall we? What, metaphorically speaking, walks on four legs just after midnight, on two legs for most of the day-'

'Barring accidents,' said the Sphinx, pathetically eager to show that it was making a contribution.

'Fine, on two legs barring accidents, until at least suppertime, when it walks with three legs-'

'I've known people use two walking sticks,' said the Sphinx helpfully.

'Okay. How about: when it continues to walk on two legs or with any prosthetic aids of its choice?'

The Sphinx gave this some consideration.

'Ye-ess,' it said gravely. 'That seems to fit all eventualities.'

'Well?' said Teppic.

'Well what?' said the Sphinx.

'Well, what's the answer?'

The Sphinx gave him a stony look, and then showed its fangs.

'Oh no,' it said. 'You don't catch me out like that. You think I'm stupid? You've got to tell me the answer.'

'Oh, blow,' said Teppic.

'Thought you had me there, didn't you?' said the Sphinx.

'Sorry.'

'You thought you could get me all confused, did you?'

The Sphinx grinned.

'It was worth a try,' said Teppic.

'Can't blame you. So what's the answer, then?'

Teppic scratched his nose.

'Haven't a clue,' he said. 'Unless, and this is a shot in the dark, you understand, it's: A Man.'

The Sphinx glared at him.

'You've been here before, haven't you?' it said accusingly.

'No.'

'Then someone's been talking, right?'

'Who could have talked? Has anyone ever guessed the riddle?' said Teppic.

'No!'

'Well, then. They couldn't have talked, could they?'

The Sphinx's claws scrabbled irritably on its rock.

'I suppose you'd better move along, then,' it grumbled.

'Thank you,' said Teppic.

'I'd be grateful if you didn't tell anyone, please,' added the Sphinx, coldly. 'I wouldn't like to spoil it for other people.'

Teppic scrambled up a rock and on to You Bastard.

'Don't you worry about that,' he said, spurring the camel onwards. He couldn't help noticing the way the Sphinx was moving its lips silently, as though trying to work something out.

You Bastard had gone only twenty yards or so before an enraged bellow erupted behind him. For once he forgot the etiquette that says a camel must be hit with a stick before it does anything. All four feet hit the sand and pushed.

This time he got it right.

The priests were going irrational.

It wasn't that the gods were disobeying them. The gods were ignoring them.

The gods always had. It took great skill to persuade a Djelibeybi god to obey you, and the priests had to be fast on their toes. For example, if you pushed a rock off a cliff, then a quick request to the gods that it should fall down was certain to be answered. In the same way, the gods ensured that the sun set and the stars came out. Any petition to the gods to see to it that palm trees grew with their roots in the ground and their leaves on top was certain to be graciously accepted. On the whole, any priest who cared about such things could ensure a high rate of success.

However, it was one thing for the gods to ignore you when they were far off and invisible, and quite another when they were strolling across the landscape. It made you feel such a fool.

'Why don't they listen?' said the high priest of Teg, the Horse-Headed god of agriculture. He was in tears. Teg had last been seen sitting in a field, pulling up corn and giggling.

The other high priests were faring no better. Rituals hallowed by time had filled the air in the palace with sweet blue smoke and cooked enough assorted livestock to feed a famine, but the gods were settling in the Old Kingdom as if they owned it, and the people therein were no more than insects.

And the crowds were still outside. Religion had ruled in the Old Kingdom for the best part of seven thousand years. Behind the eyes of every priest present was a graphic image of what would happen if the people ever thought, for one moment, that it ruled no more.

'And so, Dios,' said Koomi, 'we turn to you. What would you have us do now?'

Dios sat on the steps of the throne and stared gloomily at the floor. The gods didn't listen. He knew that. He knew that, of all people. But it had never mattered before. You just went through the motions and came up with an answer. It was the ritual that was important, not the gods. The gods were there to do the duties of a megaphone, because who else would people listen to?

While he fought to think clearly his hands went through the motions of the Ritual of the Seventh Hour, guided by neural instructions as rigid and unchangeable as crystals.

'You have tried everything?' he said.

'Everything that you advised, O Dios,' said Koomi. He waited until most of the priests were watching them and then, in a rather louder voice, continued: 'If the king was here, he would intercede for us.'

He caught the eye of the priestess of Sarduk. He hadn't discussed things with her; indeed, what was there to discuss? But he had an inkling that there was some fellow, sorry, feeling there. She didn't like Dios very much, but was less in awe of him than were the others.

'I told you that the king is dead,' said Dios.

'Yes, we heard you. Yet there seems to be no body, O Dios. Nevertheless, we believe what you tell us, for it is the great Dios that speaks, and we pay no heed to malicious gossip.'

The priests were silent. Malicious gossip, too? And somebody had already mentioned rumours, hadn't they? Definitely something amiss here.

'It happened many times in the past,' said the priestess, on

— cue. 'When a kingdom was threatened or the river did not rise, the king went to intercede with the gods. Was sent to intercede with the gods.'

The edge of satisfaction in her voice made it clear that it was a one-way trip.

Koomi shivered with delight and horror. Oh, yes. Those were the days. Some countries had experimented with the idea of the sacrificial king, long ago. A few years of feasting and ruling, then chop — and make way for a new administration.

'In a time of crisis, possibly any high-born minister of state would suffice,' she went on.

Dios looked up, his face mirroring the agony of his tendons.

'I see,' he said. 'And who would be high priest then?'

'The gods would choose,' said Koomi.

'I daresay they would,' said Dios sourly. 'I am in some doubt as to the wisdom of their choice.'

'The dead can speak to the gods in the netherworld,' said the priestess.

'But the gods are all here,' said Dios, fighting against the throbbing in his legs, which were insisting that, at this time, they should be walking along the central corridor en route to supervise the Rite of the Under Sky. His body cried out for the solace over the river. And once over the river, never to return . . . but he'd always said that.

'In the absence of the king the high priest performs his duties. Isn't that right, Dios?' said Koomi.

It was. It was written. You couldn't rewrite it, once it was written. He'd written it. Long ago.

Dios hung his head. This was worse than plumbing, this was worse than anything. And yet, and yet. . . to go across the river . . .

'Very well, then,' he said. 'I have one final request.'

'Yes?' Koomi's voice had timbre now, it was already a high priest's voice.

'I wish to be interred in the-' Dios began, and was cut off by a murmur from those priests who could look out across the river. All eyes turned to the distant, inky shore.

The legions of the kings of Djelibeybi were on the march. They lurched, but they covered the ground quickly. There were platoons, battalions of them. They didn't need Gern's hammer any more.

'It's the pickle,' said the king, as they watched half-a— dozen ancestors mummyhandle a seal out of its socket. 'It toughens you up.'

Some of the more ancient were getting over enthusiastic and attacking the pyramids themselves, actually managing to shift blocks higher than they were. The king didn't blame them. How terrible to be dead, and know you were dead, and locked away in the darkness.

They're never going to get me in one of those things, he vowed.

At last they came, like a tide, to yet another pyramid. — It was small, low, dark, half-concealed in drifted sands, and the blocks were hardly even masonry; they were no more than roughly squared boulders. It had clearly been built long before the Kingdom got the hang of pyramids. It was barely more than a pile.

Hacked into the doorseal, angular and deep, were the hieroglyphs of the Kingdom: KHUFT HAD ME MADE. THE FIRST.

Several ancestors clustered around it.

'Oh dear,' said the king. 'This might be going too far.'

'The First,' whispered Dil. 'The First into the Kingdom: No— one here before but hippos and crocodiles. From inside that pyramid seventy centuries look out at us. Older than anything-'

'Yes, yes, all right,' said Teppicymon. 'No need to get carried away. He was a man, just like all of us.'

'"AndKhuftthecamelherderlookeduponthevalley. . ."' Dil began.

'After seven thousand yeares, he wyll be wantyng to look upon yt again,' said Ashk-ur-men-tep bluntly.

'Even so,' said the king. 'It does seem a bit . .

'The dead are equal,' said Ashk-ur-men-tep. 'You, younge manne. Calle hym forth.'

'Who, me?' said Gern. 'But he was the Fir-'

'Yes, we've been through all that,' said Teppicymon. 'Do it. Everyone's getting impatient. So is he, I expect.'

Gern rolled his eyes, and hefted the hammer. Just as it was about to hiss down on the seal Dil darted forward, causing Gern to dance wildly across the ground in a groin-straining effort to avoid interring the hammer in his master's head.

'It's open!' said Dil. 'Look! The seal just swings aside!'

'Youe meane he iss oute?'

Teppicymon tottered forward and grabbed the door of the pyramid. It moved quite easily. Then he examined the stone beneath it. Derelict and half-covered though it was, someone had taken care to keep a pathway clear to the pyramid. And the stone was quite worn away, as by the passage of many feet.

This was not, by the nature of things, the normal state of affairs for a pyramid. The whole point was that once you were in, you were in.

The mummies examined the worn entrance and creaked at one another in surprise. One of the very ancient ones, who was barely holding himself together, made a noise like deathwatch beetle finally conquering a rotten tree.

'What'd he say?' said Teppicymon.

The mummy of Ashk-ur-men-tep translated. 'He saide yt ys Spooky,' he croaked.

The late king nodded. 'I'm going in to have a look. You two live ones, you come with me.'

Dil's face fell.

'Oh, come on, man,' snapped Teppicymon, forcing the door back. 'Look, I'm not frightened. Show a bit of backbone. Everyone else is.'

'But we'll need some light,' protested Dil.

The nearest mummies lurched back sharply as Gern timidly took a tinderbox out of his pocket.

'We'll need something to burn,' said Dil. The mummies shuffled further back, muttering.

'There's torches in here,' said Teppicymon, his voice slightly muffled. 'And you can keep them away from me, lad.'

It was a small pyramid, mazeless, without traps, just a stone passage leading upwards. Tremulously, expecting at any moment to see unnamed terrors leap out at them, the embalmers followed the king into a small, square chamber that smelled of sand. The roof was black with soot.

There was no sarcophagus within, no mummy case, no terror named or nameless. The centre of the floor was occupied by a raised block, with a blanket and a pillow on it.

Neither of them looked particularly old. It was almost disappointing.

Gern craned to look around.

'Quite nice, really,' he said. 'Comfy.'

'No,' said Dil.

'Hey, master king, look here,' said Gern, trotting over to one of the walls. 'Look. Someone's been scratching things. Look, all little lines all over the wall.'

'And this wall,' said the king, 'and the floor. Someone's been counting. Every ten have been crossed through, you see. Someone's been counting things. Lots of things.' He stood back.

'What things?' said Dil, looking behind him.

'Very strange,' said the king. He leaned forward. 'You can barely make out the inscriptions underneath.'

'Can you read it, king?' said Gern, showing what Dil considered to be unnecessary enthusiasm.

'No. It's one of the really ancient dialects. Can't make out a blessed hieroglyph,' said Teppicymon. 'I shouldn't think there's a single person alive today who can read it.'

'That's a shame,' said Gern.

'True enough,' said the king, and sighed. They stood in gloomy silence.

'So perhaps we could ask one of the dead ones?' said Gern.

'Er. Gern,' said Dil, backing away.

The king slapped the apprentice on the back, pitching him forward.

'Damn clever idea!' he said. 'We'll just go and get one of the real early ancestors. Oh.' He sagged. 'That's no good. No-one will be able to understand them-'

'Gern!' said Dil, his eyes growing wider.

'No, it's all right, king,' said Gern, enjoying the new-found freedom of thought, 'because, the reason being, everyone understands someone, all we have to do is sort them out.'

'Bright lad. Bright lad,' said the king.

'Gern!'

They both looked at him in astonishment.

'You all right, master?' said Gern. 'You've gone all white.'

'The t-' stuttered Dil, rigid with terror.

'The what, master?'

'The t— look at the t-'

'He ought to have a lie down,' said the king. 'I know his sort. The artistic type. Highly strung.'

Dil took a deep breath.

'Look at the sodding torch, Gern!' he shouted.

They looked.

Without any fuss, turning its black ashes into dry straw, the torch was burning backwards.

The Old Kingdom lay stretched out before Teppic, and it was unreal.

He looked at You Bastard, who had stuck his muzzle in a wayside spring and was making a noise like the last drop in the milkshake glass27. You Bastard looked real enough. There's nothing like a camel for looking really solid. But the landscape had an uncertain quality, as if it hadn't quite made up its mind to be there or not.

Except for the Great Pyramid. It squatted in the middle distance as real as the pin that nails a butterfly to a board. It was contriving to look extremely solid, as though it was sucking all the solidity out of the landscape into itself.

Well, he was here. Wherever here was.

How did you kill a pyramid?

And what would happen if you did?

He was working on the hypothesis that everything would snap back into place. Into the Old Kingdom's pool of recirculated time.

He watched the gods for a while, wondering what the hell they were, and how it didn't seem to matter. They looked no more real than the land over which they strode, about incomprehensible errands of their own. The world was no more than a dream. Teppic felt incapable of surprise. If seven fat cows had wandered by, he wouldn't have given them a second glance.

He remounted You Bastard and rode him, sloshing gently, down the road. The fields on either side had a devastated look.

The sun was finally sinking; the gods of night and evening were prevailing over the daylight gods, but it had been a long struggle and, when you thought about all the things that would happen to it now — eaten by goddesses, carried on boats under the world, and so on — it was an odds-on chance that it wouldn't be seen again.

No-one was visible as he rode into the stable yard. You Bastard padded sedately to his stall and pulled delicately at a wisp of hay. He'd thought of something interesting about bivariant distributions.

Teppic patted him on the flank, raising another cloud, and walked up the wide steps that led to the palace proper. Still there were no guards, no servants. No living soul.

He slipped into his own palace like a thief in the day, and found his way to Dil's workshop. It was empty, and looked as though a robber with very peculiar tastes had recently been at work in there. The throne room smelled like a kitchen, and by the looks of it the cooks had fled in a hurry.

The gold mask of the kings of Djelibeybi, slightly buckled out of shape, had rolled into a corner. He picked it up and, on a suspicion, scratched it with one of his knives. The gold peeled away, exposing a silver-grey gleam.

He'd suspected that. There simply wasn't that much gold around. The mask felt as heavy as lead because, well, it was lead. He wondered if it had ever been all gold, and which ancestor had done it, and how many pyramids it had paid for. It was probably very symbolic of something or other. Perhaps not even symbolic of anything. Just symbolic, all by itself.

One of the sacred cats was hiding under the throne. It flattened its ears and spat at Teppic as he reached down to pat it. That much hadn't changed, at least.

Still no people. He padded across to the balcony.

And there the people were, a great silent mass, staring across the river in the fading, leaden light. As Teppic watched a flotilla of boats and ferries set out from the near bank.

We ought to have been building bridges, he thought. But we said that would be shackling the river.

He dropped lightly over the balustrade on to the packed earth and walked down to the crowd.

And the full force of its belief scythed into him.

The people of Djelibeybi might have had conflicting ideas about their gods, but their belief in their kings had been unswerving for thousands of years. To Teppic it was like walking into a vat of alcohol. He felt it pouring into him until his fingertips crackled, rising up through his body until it gushed into his brain, bringing not omnipotence but the feeling of omnipotence, the very strong sensation that while he didn't actually know everything, he would do soon and had done once.

It had been like this back in Ankh, when the divinity had hooked him. But that had been just a flicker. Now it had the solid power of real belief behind it.

He looked down at a rustling below him, and saw green shoots springing out of the dry sand around his feet.

Bloody hell, he thought. I really am a god.

This could be very embarrassing.

He shouldered his way through the press of people until he reached the riverbank and stood there in a thickening clump of corn. As the crowd caught on, those nearest fell to their knees, and a circle of reverentially collapsing people spread out from Teppic like ripples.

But I never wanted this! I just wanted to help people live more happily, with plumbing. I wanted something done about rundown inner-city areas. I just wanted to put them at their ease, and ask them how they enjoyed their lives. I thought schools might be a good idea, so they wouldn't fall down and worship someone just because he's got green feet.

And I wanted to do something about the architecture… As the light drained from the sky like steel going cold the pyramid was somehow even bigger than before. If you had to design something to give the very distinct impression of mass, the pyramid was It. There was a crowd of figures around it, unidentifiable in the grey light.

Teppic looked around the prostrate crowd until he saw someone in the uniform of the palace guard.

'You, man, on your feet,' he commanded.

The man gave him a look of dread, but did stagger sheepishly upright.

'What's going on here?'

'O king, who is the lord of-'

'I don't think we have time,' said Teppic. 'I know who I am, I want to know what's happening.'

'O king, we saw the dead walking! The priests have gone to talk to them.'

'The dead walking?'

'Yes, O king.'

'We're talking about not-alive people here, are we?'

'Yes, O king.'

'Oh. Well, thank you. That was very succinct. Not informative, but succinct. Are there any boats around?'

'The priests took them all, O king.'

Teppic could see that this was true. The jetties near the palace were usually thronged with boats, and now they were all empty. As he stared at the water it grew two eyes and a long snout, to remind him that swimming the Djel was as feasible as nailing fog to the wall.

He stared at the crowd. Every person was watching him expectantly, convinced that he would know what to do next.

He turned back to the river, extended his hands in front of him, pressed them together and then opened them gently. There was a damp sucking noise, and the waters of the Djel parted in front of him. There was a sigh from the crowd, but their astonishment was nothing to the surprise of a dozen or so crocodiles, who were left trying to swim in ten feet of air.

Teppic ran down the bank and over the heavy mud, dodging to avoid the tails that slashed wildly at him as the reptiles dropped heavily on to the riverbed.

The Djel loomed up as two khaki walls, so that he was running along a damp and shadowy alley. Here and there were fragments of bones, old shields, bits of spear, the ribs of boats. He leapt and jinked around the debris of centuries.

Ahead of him a big bull crocodile propelled itself dreamily out of the wall of water, flailed madly in mid-air, and flopped into the ooze. Teppic trod heavily on its snout and plunged on.

Behind him a few of the quicker citizens, seeing the dazed creatures below them, began to look for stones. The crocodiles had been undisputed masters of the river since primordial times, but if it was possible to do a little catching-up in the space of a few minutes, it was certainly worth a try.

The sound of the monsters of the river beginning the long journey to handbaghood broke out behind Teppic as he sloshed up the far bank.

A line of ancestors stretched across the chamber, down the dark passageway, and out into the sand. It was filled with whispers going in both directions, a dry sound, like the wind blowing through old paper.

Dil lay on the sand, with Gern flapping a cloth in his face.

'Wha' they doing?' he murmured.

'Reading the inscription,' said Gern. 'You ought to see it, master! The one doing the reading, he's practically a-'

'Yes, yes, all right,' said Dil, struggling up.

'He's more than six thousand years old! And his grandson's listening to him, and telling his grandson, and he's telling his gra-'

'Yes, yes, all-'

'"And Khuft-too-said-Unto-the-First, What-may-We-Give-Unto— You, Who-Has-Taught-Us-the-Right-Ways»,' said Teppicymon28, who was at the end of the line. '"And-the-First-Spake, and-This-He-Spake, Build— for-Me-a-Pyramid, That-I-May-Rest, and-Build-it-of-These— Dimensions, That-it-Be-Proper. And-Thus-It-Was-Done, and-The-Name— of-the-First-was . . ."'

But there was no name. It was just a babble of raised voices, arguments, ancient cursewords, spreading along the line of desiccated ancestors like a spark along a powder trail. Until it reached Teppicymon, who exploded.

The Ephebian sergeant, quietly perspiring in the shade, saw what he had been half expecting and wholly dreading. There was a column of dust on the opposite horizon. The Tsorteans' main force was getting there first.

He stood up, nodded professionally to his counterpart across the way, and looked at the double handful of men under his command.

'I need a messenger to take, er, a message back to the city,' he said. A forest of hands shot up. The sergeant sighed, and selected young Autocue, who he knew was missing his mum.

'Run like the wind,' he said. 'Although I expect you won't need telling, will you? And then . . . and then . .

He stood with his lips moving silently, while the sun scoured the rocks of the hot, narrow pass and a few insects buzzed in the scrub bushes. His education hadn't included a course in Famous Last Words.

He raised his eyes in the direction of home.

'Go, tell the Ephebians-' he began.

The soldiers waited.

'What?' said Autocue after a while. 'Go and tell them what?'

The sergeant relaxed, like air being let out of a balloon.

'Go and tell them, what kept you?' he said. On the near horizon another column of dust was advancing.

This was more like it. If there was going to be a massacre, then it ought to be shared by both sides.

The city of the dead lay before Teppic. After Ankh-Morpork, which was almost its direct opposite (in Ankh, even the bedding was alive) it was probably the biggest city on the Disc; its streets were the finest, its architecture the most majestic and awe— inspiring.

In population terms the necropolis outstripped the other cities of the Old Kingdom, but its people didn't get out much and there was nothing to do on Saturday nights.

Until now.

Now it thronged:

Teppic watched from the top of a wind-etched obelisk as the grey and brown, and here and there somewhat greenish, armies of the departed passed beneath him. The kings had been democratic. After the pyramids had been emptied gangs of them had turned their attention to the lesser tombs, and now the necropolis really did have its tradesmen, its nobles and even its artisans. Not that there was, by and large, any way of telling the difference.

They were, to a corpse, heading for the Great Pyramid. It loomed like a carbuncle over the lesser, older buildings. And they all seemed very angry about something.

Teppic dropped lightly on to the wide flat roof of a mastaba, jogged to its far end, cleared the gap on to an ornamental sphinx

— not without a moment's worry, but this one seemed inert enough — and from there it was but the throw of a grapnel to one of the lower storeys of a step pyramid. The long light of the contentious sun lanced across the spent landscape as he leapt from monument to monument, zig-zagging high above the shuffling army.

Behind him shoots appeared briefly in the ancient stone, cracking it a little, and then withered and died.

This, said his blood as it tingled around his body, is what you trained for. Even Mericet couldn't mark you down for this. Speeding in the shadows above a silent city, running like a cat, finding handholds that would have perplexed a gecko — and, at the destination, a victim.

True, it was a billion tons of pyramid, and hitherto the largest client of an inhumation had been Patricio, the 23-stone Despot of Quirm.

A monumental needle recording in bas-relief the achievements of a king four thousand years ago, and which would have been more pertinent if the wind-driven sand hadn't long ago eroded his name, provided a handy ladder which needed only an expertly thrown grapnel from its top, lodging in the outstretched fingers of a forgotten monarch, to allow him a long, gentle arc on to the roof of a tomb.

Running, climbing and swinging, hastily hammering crampons in the memorials of the dead, Teppic went forth.

Pinpoints of firelight among the limestone pricked out the lines of the opposing armies. Deep and stylised though the enmity was between the two empires, they both abided by the ancient tradition that warfare wasn't undertaken at night, during harvest or when wet. It was important enough to save up for special occasions. Going at it hammer and tongs just reduced the whole thing to a farce.

In the twilight on both sides of the line came the busy sound of advanced woodwork in progress.

It's said that generals are always ready to fight the last War over again. It had been thousands of years since the last war between Tsort and Ephebe, but generals have long memories and this time they were ready for it.

On both sides of the line, wooden horses were taking shape.

'It's gone,' said Ptaclusp IIb, slithering back down the pile of rubble.

'About time, too,' said his father. 'Help me fold up your brother. You're sure it won't hurt him?'

'Well, if we do it carefully he can't move in Time, that is, width to us. So if no time can pass for him, nothing can hurt him.'

Ptaclusp thought of the old days, when pyramid building had simply consisted of piling one block on another and all you needed to remember was that you put less on top as you went up. And now it meant trying to put a crease in one of your sons.

'Right,' he said doubtfully. 'Let's be off, then.' He inched his way up the debris and poked his head over the top just as the vanguard of the dead came round the corner of the nearest minor pyramid.

His first thought was: this is it, they're coming to complain. He'd done his best. It wasn't always easy to build to a budget. Maybe not every lintel was exactly as per drawings, perhaps the quality of the internal plasterwork wasn't always up to snuff, but . . .

They can't all be complaining. Not this many of them.

Ptaclusp IIb climbed up alongside him. His mouth dropped open.

'Where are they all coming from?' he said.

'You're the expert. You tell me.

'Are they dead?'

Ptaclusp scrutinised some of the approaching marchers.

'If they're not, some of them are awfully ill,' he said.

'Let's make a run for it!'

'Where to? Up the pyramid?'

The Great Pyramid loomed up behind them, its throbbing filling the air. Ptaclusp stared at it.

'What's going to happen tonight?' he said.

'What?'

'Well, is it going to — do whatever it did — again?'

IIb stared at him. 'Dunno.'

'Can you find out?'

'Only by waiting. I'm not even sure what it's done now.

'Are we going to like it?'

'I shouldn't think so, dad. Oh, dear.'

'What's up now?'

'Look over there.'

Heading towards the marching dead, trailing behind Koomi like a tail behind a comet, were the priests.

It was hot and dark inside the horse. It was also very crowded.

They waited, sweating.

Young Autocue stuttered: 'What'll happen now, sergeant?'

The sergeant moved a foot tentatively. The atmosphere would have induced claustrophobia in a sardine.

'Well, lad. They'll find us, see, and be so impressed they'll drag us all the way back to their city, and then when it's dark we'll leap out and put them to the sword. Or put the sword to them. One or the other. And then we'll sack the city, bum the walls and sow the ground with salt. You remember, lad, I showed you on Friday.'

'Oh.'

Moisture dripped from a score of brows. Several of the men were trying to compose a letter home, dragging styli across wax that was close to melting.

'And then what will happen, sergeant?'

'Why, lad, then we'll go home heroes.'

'Oh.'

The older soldiers sat stolidly looking at the wooden walls. Autocue shifted uneasily, still worried about something.

'My mum said to come back with my shield or on it, sergeant,' he said.

'Jolly good, lad. That's the spirit.'

'We will be all right, though. Won't we, sergeant?'

The sergeant stared into the fetid darkness.

After a while, someone started to play the harmonica.

Ptaclusp half-turned his head from the scene and a voice by his ear said, 'You're the pyramid builder, aren't you?'

Another figure had joined them in their bolthole, one who was black-clad and moved in a way that made a cat's tread sound like a one-man band.

Ptaclusp nodded, unable to speak. He had had enough shocks for one day.

'Well, switch it off. Switch it off now.'

IIb leaned over.

'Who're you?' he said.

'My name is Teppic.'

'What, like the king?'

'Yes. Just like the king. Now turn it off.'

'It's a pyramid! You can't turn off pyramids!' said IIb.

'Well, then, make it flare.'

'We tried that last night.' IIb pointed to the shattered capstone. 'Unroll Two-Ay, dad.'

Teppic regarded the flat brother.

'It's some sort of wall poster, is it?' he said eventually.

IIb looked down. Teppic saw the movement, and looked down also; he was ankle-deep in green sprouts.

'Sorry,' he said. 'I can't seem to shake it off.'

'It can be dreadful,' said IIb frantically. 'I know how it is, I had this verruca once, nothing would shift it.'

Teppic hunkered down by the cracked stone.

'This thing,' he said. 'What's the significance? I mean, it's coated with metal. Why?'

'There's got to be a sharp point for the flare,' said IIb.

'Is that all? This is gold, isn't it?'

'It's electrum. Gold and silver alloy. The capstone has got to be made of electrum.'

Teppic peeled back the foil.

'This isn't all metal,' he said mildly.

'Yes. Well,' said Ptaclusp. 'We found, er, that foil works just as well.'

'Couldn't you use something cheaper? Like steel?' Ptaclusp sneered. It hadn't been a good day, sanity was a distant memory, but there were certain facts he knew for a fact.

'Wouldn't last for more than a year or two,' he said. 'What with the dew and so forth. You'd lose the point. Wouldn't last more than two or three hundred times.'

Teppic leaned his head against the pyramid. It was cold, and it hummed. He thought he could hear, under the throbbing, a faint rising tone.

The pyramid towered over him. (IIb could have told him that this was because the walls sloped in at precisely 56 degrees, and an effect known as battering made the pyramid loom even higher than it really was. He probably would have used words like perspective and virtual height as well.

The black marble was glassy smooth. The masons had done well. The cracks between each silky panel were hardly wide enough to insert a knife. But wide enough, all the same.

'How about once?' he said.

Koomi chewed his fingernails distractedly.

'Fire,' he said. 'That'd stop them. They're very inflammable. Or water. They'd probably dissolve.'

'Some of them were destroying pyramids,' said the high priest of Juf, the Cobra-Headed God of Papyrus.

'People always come back from the dead in such a bad temper,' said another priest.

Koomi watched the approaching army in mounting bewilderment.

'Where's Dios?' he said.

The old high priest was pushed to the front of the crowd.

'What shall I say to them?' Koomi demanded.

It would be wrong to say that Dios smiled. It wasn't an action he often felt called upon to perform. But his mouth creased at the edges and his eyes went half-hooded.

'You could tell them,' he said, 'that new times demand new men. You could tell them that it is time to make way for younger people with fresh ideas. You could tell them that they are outmoded. You could tell them all that.'

'They'll kill me!'

'Would they be that anxious for your eternal company, I wonder?'

'You're still high priest!'

'Why don't you talk to them?' said Dios. 'Don't forget to tell them that they are to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Century of the Cobra.' He handed Koomi the staff. 'Or whatever this century is called,' he added.

Koomi felt the eyes of the assembled brethren and sistren upon him. He cleared his throat, adjusted his robe, and turned to face the mummies.

They were chanting something, one word, over and over again. He couldn't quite make it out, but it seemed to have worked them up into a rage.

He raised the staff, and the carved wooden snakes looked unusually alive in the flat light.

The gods of the Disc — and here is meant the great consensus gods, who really do exist in Dunmanifestin, their semi-detached Valhalla on the world's impossibly high central mountain, where they pass the time observing the petty antics of mortal men and organising petitions about how the influx of the Ice Giants has lowered property values in the celestial regions — the gods of Disc have always been fascinated by humanity's incredible ability to say exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time.

They're not talking here of such easy errors as 'It's perfectly safe', or 'The ones that growl a lot don't bite', but of simple little sentences which are injected into difficult situations with the same general effect as a steel bar dropped into the bearings of a 3,000 rpm, 660 megawatt steam turbine.

And connoisseurs of mankind's tendency to put his pedal extremity where his tongue should be are agreed that when the judges' envelopes are opened then Hoot Koomi's fine performance in 'Begone from this place, foul shades' will be a contender for all— time bloody stupid greeting.

The front row of ancestors halted, and were pushed forward a little by the press of those behind.

King Teppicymon XXVII, who by common consent among the other twenty-six Teppicymons was spokesman, lurched on alone and picked up the trembling Koomi by his arms.

'What did you say?' he said.

Koomi's eyes rolled. His mouth opened and shut, but his voice wisely decided not to come out.

Teppicymon pushed his bandaged face close to the priest's pointed nose.

'I remember you,' he growled. 'I've seen you oiling around the place. A bad hat, if ever I saw one. I remember thinking that.'

He glared around at the others.

'You're all priests, aren't you? Come to say sorry, have you? Where's Dios?'

The ancestors pressed forward, muttering. When you've been dead for hundreds of years, you're not inclined to feel generous to those people who assured you that you were going to have a lovely time. There was a scuffle in the middle of the crowd as King Psam-nut-kha, who had spent five thousand years with nothing to look at but the inside of a lid, was restrained by younger colleagues.

Teppicymon switched his attention back to Koomi, who hadn't gone anywhere.

'Foul shades, was it?' he said.

'Er,' said Koomi.

'Put him down.' Dios gently took the staff from Koomi's unresisting fingers and said, 'I am Dios, the high priest. Why are you here?'

It was a perfectly calm and reasonable voice, with overtones of concerned but indubitable authority. It was a tone of voice the pharaohs of Djelibeybi had heard for thousands of years, a voice which had regulated the days, prescribed the rituals, cut the time into carefully-turned segments, interpreted the ways of gods to men. It was the sound of authority, which stirred antique memories among the ancestors and caused them to look embarrassed and shuffle their feet.

One of the younger pharaohs lurched forward.

'You bastard,' he croaked. 'You laid us out and shut us away, one by one, and you went on. People thought the name was passed on but it was always you. How old are you, Dios?'

There was no sound. No-one moved. A breeze stirred the dust a little.

Dios sighed.

'I did not mean to,' he said. 'There was so much to do. There were never enough hours in the day. Truly, I did not realise what was happening. I thought it was refreshing, nothing more, I suspected nothing. I noted the passing of the rituals, not the years.'

'Come from a long-lived family, do you?' said Teppicymon sarcastically.

Dios stared at him, his lips moving. 'Family,' he said at last, his voice softened from its normal bark. 'Family. Yes. I must have had a family, mustn't I. But, you know, I can't remember. Memory is the first thing that goes. The pyramids don't seem to preserve it, strangely.'

'This is Dios, the footnote-keeper of history?' said Teppicymon.

'Ah.' The high priest smiled. 'Memory goes from the head. But it is all around me. Every scroll and book.'

'That's the history of the kingdom, man!'

'Yes. My memory.'

The king relaxed a little. Sheer horrified fascination was unravelling the knot of fury.

'How old are you?' he said.

'I think… seven thousand years. But sometimes it seems much longer.'

'Really seven thousand years?'

'Yes,' said Dios.

'How could any man stand it?' said the king.

Dios shrugged.

'Seven thousand years is just one day at a time,' he said. Slowly, with the occasional wince, he got down on one knee and held up his staff in shaking hands.

'O kings,' he said, 'I have always existed only to serve.'

There was a long, extremely embarrassed pause.

'We will destroy the pyramids,' said Far-re-ptah, pushing forward.

'You will destroy the kingdom,' said Dios. 'I cannot allow it.'

'You cannot allow it?'

'Yes. What will we be without the pyramids?' said Dios.

'Speaking for the dead,' said Far-re-ptah, 'we will be free.'

'But the kingdom will be just another small country,' said Dios, and to their horror the ancestors saw tears in his eyes.

'All that we hold dear, you will cast adrift in time. Uncertain. Without guidance. Changeable.'

'Then it can take its chances,' said Teppicymon. 'Stand aside, Dios.'

Dios held up his staff. The snake around it uncoiled and hissed at the king.

'Be still,' said Dios.

Dark lightning crackled between the ancestors. Dios stared at the staff in astonishment; it had never done this before.

But seven thousand years of his priests had believed, in their hearts, that the staff of Dios could rule this world and the next.

In the sudden silence there was the faint chink, high up, of a knife being wedged between two black marble slabs.

The pyramid pulsed under Teppic, and the marble was as slippery as ice. The inward slope wasn't the help he had expected.

The thing, he told himself, is not to look up or down, but straight ahead, into the marble, parcelling the impossible height into manageable sections. Just like time. That's how we survive infinity — we kill it by breaking it up into small bits.

He was aware of shouts below him, and glanced briefly over his shoulder. He was barely a third of the way up, but he could see the crowds across the river, a grey mass speckled with the pale blobs of upturned faces. Closer to, the pale army of the dead, facing the small grey group of priests, with Dios in front of them. There was some sort of argument going on.

The sun was on the horizon.

He reached up, located the next crack, found a handhold.

Dios spotted Ptaclusp's head peering over the debris, and sent a couple of priests to bring him back. IIb followed, his carefully folded brother under his arm.

'What is the boy doing?' Dios demanded.

'O Dios, he said he was going to flare off the pyramid,' said Ptaclusp.

'How can he do that?'

'O lord, he says he is going to cap it off before the sun sets.'

'Is it possible?' Dios demanded, turning to the architect. IIb hesitated.

'It may be,' he said.

'And what will happen? Will we return to the world outside?'

'Well, it depends on whether the dimensional effect ratchets, as it were, and is stable in each state, or if, on the contrary, the pyramid is acting as a piece of rubber under tension-'

His voice stuttered to a halt under the intensity of Dios's stare.

'I don't know,' he admitted.

'Back to the world outside,' said Dios. 'Not our world. Our world is the Valley. Ours is a world of order. Men need order.'

He raised his staff.

'That's my son!' shouted Teppicymon. 'Don't you dare try anything! That's the king!'

The ranks of ancestors swayed, but couldn't break the spell.

'Er, Dios,' said Koomi.

Dios turned, his eyebrows raised.

'You spoke?' he said.

'Er, if it is the king, er I — that is, we — think perhaps you should let him get on with it. Er, don't you think that would be a really good idea?'

Dios's staff kicked, and the priests felt the cold bands of restraint freeze their limbs.

'I gave my life for the kingdom,' said the high priest. 'I gave it over and over again. Everything it is, I created. I cannot fail it now.'

And then he saw the gods.

Teppic eased himself up another couple of feet and then gently reached down to pull a knife out of the marble. It wasn't going to work, though. Knife climbing was for those short and awkward passages, and frowned on anyway because it suggested you'd chosen a wrong route. It wasn't for this sort of thing, unless you had unlimited knives.

He glanced over his shoulder again as strange barred shadows flickered across the face of the pyramid.

From out of the sunset, where they had been engaged in their eternal squabbling, the gods were returning.

They staggered and lurched across the fields and reed beds, heading for the pyramid. Near-brainless though they were, they understood what it was. Perhaps they even understood what Teppic was trying to do. Their assorted animal faces made it hard to be certain, but it looked as though they were very angry.

'Are you going to control them, Dios?' said the king. 'Are you going to tell them that the world should be changeless?'

Dios stared up at the creatures jostling one another as they waded the river. There were too many teeth, too many lolling tongues. The bits of them that were human were sloughing away. A lion-headed god of justice — Put, Dios recalled the name — was using its scales as a flail to beat one of the river gods. Chefet, the Dog-Headed God of metalwork, was growling and attacking his fellows at random with his hammer; this was Chefet, Dios thought, the god that he had created to be an example to men in the art of wire and filigree and small beauty.

Yet it had worked. He'd taken a desert rabble and shown them all he could remember of the arts of civilisation and the secrets of the pyramids. He'd needed gods then.

The trouble with gods is that after enough people start believing in them, they begin to exist. And what begins to exist isn't what was originally intended.

Chefet, Chefet, thought Dios. Maker of rings, weaver of metal. Now he's out of our heads, and see how his nails grow into claws . . .

This is not how I imagined him.

'Stop,' he instructed. 'I order you to stop! You will obey me. I made you!'

They also lack gratitude.

King Teppicymon felt the power around him weaken as Dios turned all his attention to ecclesiastical matters. He saw the tiny shape halfway up the wall of the pyramid, saw it falter.

The rest of the ancestors saw it, too, and as one corpse they knew what to do. Dios could wait.

This was family.

Teppic heard the snap of the handle under his foot, slid a little, and hung by one hand. He'd got another knife in above him but . . . no, no good. He hadn't got the reach. For practical purposes his arms felt like short lengths of wet rope. Now, if he spreadeagled himself as he slid, he might be able to slow enough .

He looked down and saw the climbers coming towards him, in a tide that was tumbling upwards.

The ancestors rose up the face of the pyramid silently, like creepers, each new row settling into position on the shoulders of the generation beneath, while the younger ones climbed on over them. Bony hands grabbed Teppic as the wave of edificeers broke around him, and he was half-pushed, half-pulled up the sloping wall. Voices like the creak of sarcophagi filled his ears, moaning encouragement.

'Well done, boy,' groaned a crumbling mummy, hauling him bodily on to its shoulder. 'You remind me of me when I was alive. To you, son.'

'Got him,' said the corpse above, lifting Teppic easily on one outstretched arm. 'That's a fine family spirit, lad. Best wishes from your great-great-great-great uncle, although I don't suppose you remember me. Coming up.

Other ancestors were climbing on past Teppic as he rose from hand to hand. Ancient fingers with a grip like steel clutched at him, hoisting him onwards.

The pyramid grew narrower.

Down below, Ptaclusp watched thoughtfully.

'What a workforce,' he said. 'I mean, the ones at the bottom are supporting the whole weight!'

'Dad,' said IIb. 'I think we'd better run. Those gods are getting closer.'

'Do you think we could employ them?' said Ptaclusp, ignoring him. 'They're dead, they probably won't want high wages, and-'

'Dad!'

'Sort of self-build-'

'You said no more pyramids, dad. Never again, you said. Now come on!'

Teppic scrambled to the top of the pyramid, supported by the last two ancestors. One of them was his father.

'I don't think you've met your great-grandma,' he said, indicating the shorter bandaged figure, who nodded gently at Teppic. He opened his mouth.

'There's no time,' she said. 'You're doing fine.'

He glanced at the sun which, old professional that it was, chose that moment to drop below the horizon. The gods had crossed the river, their progress slowed only by their tendency to push and shove among themselves, and were lurching through the buildings of the necropolis. Several were clustered around the spot where Dios had been.

The ancestors dropped away, sliding back down the pyramid as fast as they had climbed it, leaving Teppic alone on a few square feet of rock.

A couple of stars came out.

He saw white shapes below as the ancestors hurried away on some private errand of their own, lurching at a surprising speed towards the broad band of the river.

The gods abandoned their interest in Dios, this strange little human with the stick and the cracked voice. The nearest god, a crocodile-headed thing, jerked on to the plaza before the pyramid, squinted up at Teppic, and reached out towards him. Teppic fumbled for a knife, wondering what sort was appropriate for gods .

And, along the Djel, the pyramids began to flare their meagre store of hoarded time.

Priests and ancestors fled as the ground began to shake. Even the gods looked bewildered.

IIb snatched his father's arm and dragged him away.

'Come on!' he yelled into his ear. 'We can't be around here when it goes off! Otherwise you'll be put to bed on a coathanger!'

Around them several other pyramids struck their flares, thin and reedy affairs that were barely visible in the afterglow.

'Dad! I said we've got to go!'

Ptaclusp was dragged backwards across the flagstones, still staring at the hulking outline of the Great Pyramid.

'There's someone still there, look,' he said, and pointed to a figure alone on the plaza.

IIb peered into the gloom.

'It's only Dios, the high priest,' he said. 'I expect he's got some plan in mind, best not to meddle in the affairs of priests, now will you come on.'

The crocodile-headed god turned its snout back and forth, trying to focus on Teppic without the advantage of binocular vision. This close, its body was slightly transparent, as though someone had sketched in all the lines and got bored before it was time to do the shading. It trod on a small tomb, crushing it to powder.

A hand like a cluster of canoes with claws on hovered over Teppic. The pyramid trembled and the stone under his feet felt warm, but it resolutely forbore from any signs of wanting to flare.

The hand descended. Teppic sank on one knee and, out of desperation, raised the knife over his head in both hands.

The light glinted for a moment off the tip of the blade and then the Great Pyramid flared.

It did it in absolute silence to begin with, sending up a spire of eye-torturing flame that turned the whole kingdom into a criss-cross of black shadow and white light, a flame that might have turned any watchers not just into a pillar of salt but into a complete condiment set of their choice. It exploded like an unwound dandelion, silent as starlight, searing as a supernova.

Only after it had been bathing the necropolis in its impossible brilliance for several seconds did the sound come, and it was sound that winds itself up through the bones, creeps into every cell of the body, and tries with some success to turn them inside out. It was too loud to be called noise. There is sound so loud that it prevents itself from being heard, and this was that kind of sound.

Eventually it condescended to drop out of the cosmic scale and became, simply, the loudest noise anyone hearing it had ever experienced.

The noise stopped, filling the air with the dark metallic clang of sudden silence. The light went out, lancing the night with blue and purple afterimages. It was not the silence and darkness of conclusion but of pause, like the moment of equilibrium when a thrown ball runs out of acceleration but has yet to have gravity drawn to its attention and, for a brief moment, thinks that the worst is over.

This time it was heralded by a shrill whistling out of the clear sky and a swirl in the air that became a glow, became a flame, became a flare that sizzled downwards into the pyramid, punching into the mass of black marble. Fingers of lightning crackled out and grounded on the lesser tombs around it, so that serpents of white fire burned their way from pyramid to pyramid across the necropolis and the air filled with the stink of burning stone.

In the middle of the firestorm the Great Pyramid appeared to lift up a few inches, on a beam of incandescence, and turn through ninety degrees. This was almost certainly the special type of optical illusion which can take place even though noone is actually looking at it.

And then, with deceptive slowness and considerable dignity, it exploded.

It was almost too crass a word. What it did was this: it came apart ponderously into building-sized chunks which drifted gently away from one another, flying serenely out and over the necropolis. Several of them struck other pyramids, badly damaging them in a lazy, unselfconscious way, and then bounded on in silence until they ploughed to a halt behind a small mountain of rubble.

Only then did the boom come. It went on for quite along time.

Grey dust rolled over the kingdom.

Ptaclusp dragged himself upright and groped ahead, gingerly, until he walked into someone. He shuddered when he thought about the kind of people he'd seen walking around lately, but thought didn't come easily because something appeared to have hit him on the head recently .

'Is that you, lad?' he ventured.

'Is that you, dad?'

'Yes,' said Ptaclusp.

'It's me, dad.'

'I'm glad it's you, son.'

'Can you see anything?'

'No. It's all mist and fog.'

'Thank the gods for that, I thought it was me.'

'It is you, isn't it? You said.'

'Yes, dad.'

'Is your brother all right?'

'I've got him safe in my pocket, dad.'

'Good. So long as nothing's happened to him.'

They inched forward, clambering over lumps of masonry they could barely see.

'Something exploded, dad,' said IIb, slowly. 'I think it was the pyramid.'

Ptaclusp rubbed the top of his head, where two tons of flying rock had come within a sixteenth of an inch of fitting him for one of his own pyramids. 'It was that dodgy cement we bought from Merco the Ephebian, I expect-'

'I think this was a bit worse than a moody lintel, dad,' said IIb. 'In fact, I think it was a lot worse.'

'It looked a bit wossname, a bit on the sandy side-'

'I think you should find somewhere to sit down, dad,' said IIb, as kindly as possible. 'Here's Two-Ay. Hang on to him.'

He crept on alone, climbing over a slab of what felt very suspiciously like black marble. What he wanted, he decided, was a priest. They had to be useful for something, and this seemed the sort of time one might need one. For solace, or possibly, he felt obscurely, to beat their head in with a rock.

What he found instead was someone on their hands and knees, coughing. IIb helped him — it was definitely a him, he'd been briefly afraid it might be an it — and sat him on another lump of, yes, almost certainly marble.

'Are you a priest?' he said, fumbling in the rubble.

'I'm Dil. Chief embalmer,' the figure muttered.

'Ptaclusp IIb, paracosmic archi-' IIb began and then, suspecting that architects were not going to be too popular around here for a while, quickly corrected himself. 'I'm an engineer,' he said. 'Are you all right?'

'Don't know. What happened?'

'I think the pyramid exploded,' IIb volunteered.

'Are we dead?'

'I shouldn't think so. You're walking and talking, after all.'

Dil shivered. 'That's no guideline, take it from me. What's an engineer?'

'Oh, a builder of aqueducts,' said IIb quickly. 'They're the coming thing, you know.'

Dil stood up, a little shakily.

'I,' he said, 'need a drink. Let's find the river.'

They found Teppic first.

He was clinging to a small, truncated pyramid section that had made a moderate-sized crater when it landed.

'I know him,' said IIb. 'He's the lad who was on top of the pyramid. That's ridiculous, how could he survive that?'

'Why's there all corn sprouting out of it, too?' wondered Dil.

'I mean, perhaps there's some kind of effect if you're right in the centre of the flare, or something,' said IIb, thinking aloud. 'A sort of calm area or something, like in the middle of a whirlpool-' He reached instinctively for his wax tablet, and then stopped himself. Man was never intended to understand things he meddled with. 'Is he dead?' he said. 'Don't look at me,' said Dil, stepping back. He'd been running through his mind the alternative occupations now open to him. Upholstery sounded attractive. At least chairs didn't get up and walk after you'd stuffed them. IIb bent over the body.

'Look what he's got in his hand,' he said, gently bending back the fingers. 'It's a piece of melted metal. What's he got that for?'

Teppic dreamed.

He saw seven fat cows and seven thin cows, and one of them was riding a bicycle.

He saw some camels, singing, and the song straightened out the wrinkles in reality.

He saw a finger Write on the wall of a pyramid: Going forth is easy. Going back requires (cont. on next wall) . . .

He walked around the pyramid, where the finger continued: An effort of will, because it is much harder. Thank you.

Teppic considered this, and it occurred to him that there was one thing left to do which he had not done. He'd never known how to before, but now he could see that it was just numbers, arranged in a special way. Everything that was magical was just a way of describing the world in words it couldn't ignore.

He gave a grunt of effort.

There was a brief moment of speed. Dil and IIb looked around as long shafts of light sparkled through the mists and dust, turning the landscape into old gold.

And the sun came up.

The sergeant cautiously opened the hatch in the horse's belly. When the expected flurry of spears did not materialise he ordered Autocue to let out the rope ladder, climbed down it, and looked across the chill morning desert.

The new recruit followed him down and stood, hopping from one sandal to another, on sand that was nearly freezing now and would be frying by lunchtime.

'There,' said the sergeant, pointing, 'see the Tsortean lines, lad?'

'Looks like a row of wooden horses to me, sergeant,' said Autocue. 'The one on the end's on rockers.'

'That'll be the officers. Huh. Those Tsorteans must think we're simple.' The sergeant stamped some life into his legs, took a few breaths of fresh air, and walked back to the ladder.

'Come on, lad,' he said.

'Why've we got to go back up there?'

The sergeant paused, his foot on a rope rung.

'Use some common, laddie. They're not going to come and take our horses if they see us hanging around outside, are they? Stands to reason.'

'You sure they're going to come, then?' said Autocue. The sergeant frowned at him.

'Look, soldier,' he said, 'anyone bloody stupid enough to think we're going to drag a lot of horses full of soldiers back to our city is certainly daft enough to drag ours all the way back to theirs. QED.'

'QED, sarge?'

'It means get back up the bloody ladder, lad.'

Autocue saluted. 'Permission to be excused first, sarge?'

'Excused what?'

'Excused, sarge,' said Autocue, a shade desperately. 'I mean, it's a bit cramped in the horse, sarge, if you know what I mean.'

'You're going to have to learn a bit of will power if you want to stay in the horse soldiers, boy. You know that?'

'Yes, sarge,' said Autocue miserably.

'You've got one minute.'

'Thanks, sarge.'

When the hatch closed above him Autocue sidled over to one of the horse's massive legs and put it to a use for which it wasn't originally intended.

And it was while he was staring vaguely ahead, lost in that Zen-like contemplation which occurs at moments like this, that there was a faint pop in the air and an entire river valley opened up in front of him.

It's not the sort of thing that ought to happen to a thoughtful lad. Especially one who has to wash his own uniform.

A breeze from the sea blew into the kingdom, hinting at, no, positively roaring suggestions of salt, shellfish and sun-soaked tidelines. A few rather puzzled seabirds wheeled over the necropolis, where the wind scurried among the fallen masonry and covered with sand the memorials to ancient kings, and the birds said more with a simple bowel movement than Ozymandias ever managed to say.

The wind had a cool, not unpleasant edge to it. The people out repairing the damage caused by the gods felt an urge to turn their faces towards it, as fish in a pond turn towards an influx of clear, fresh water.

No-one worked in the necropolis. Most of the pyramids had blown their upper levels clean off, and stood smoking gently like recently-extinct volcanoes. Here and there slabs of black marble littered the landscape. One of them had nearly decapitated a fine statue of Hat, the Vulture-Headed God.

The ancestors had vanished. No-one was volunteering to go and look for them.

Around midday a ship came up the Djel under full sail. It was a deceptive ship. It seemed to wallow like a fat and unprotected hippo, and it was only after watching it for some time that anyone would realise that it was also making remarkably fast progress. It dropped anchor outside the palace.

After a while, it let down a dinghy.

Teppic sat on the throne and watched the life of the kingdom reassemble itself, like a smashed mirror that is put together again and reflects the same old light in new and unexpected ways.

No-one was quite sure on what basis he was on the throne, but no-one else was at all keen on occupying it and it was a relief to hear instructions issued in a clear, confident voice. It is amazing what people will obey, if a clear and confident voice is used, and the kingdom was well used to a clear, confident voice.

Besides, giving orders stopped him thinking about things. Like, for example, what would happen next. But at least the gods had gone back to not existing again, which made it a whole lot easier to believe in them, and the grass didn't seem to be growing under his feet any more.

Maybe I can put the kingdom together again, he thought. But then what can I do with it? If only we could find Dios. He always knew what to do, that was the main thing about him.

A guard pushed his way through the milling throng of priests and nobles.

'Excuse me, your sire,' he said. 'There's a merchant to see you. He says it's urgent.'

'Not now, man. There's representatives of the Tsortean and Ephebian armies coming to see me in an hour, and there's a great deal that's got to be done first. I can't go around seeing any salesmen who happen to be passing. What's he selling, anyway?'

'Carpets, your sire.'

'Carpets?'

It was Chidder, grinning like half a watermelon, followed by several of the crew. He walked up the hall staring around at the frescoes and hangings. Because it was Chidder, he was probably costing them out. By the time he reached the throne he was drawing a double line under the total.

'Nice place,' he said, wrapping up thousands of years of architectural accumulation in a mere two syllables. 'You'll never guess what happened, we just happened to be sailing along the coast and suddenly there was this river. One minute cliffs, next minute river. There's a funny thing, I thought. I bet old Teppic's up there somewhere.'

'Where's Ptraci?'

'I knew you were complaining about the lack of the old home comforts, so we brought you this carpet.'

'I said, where's Ptraci?'

The crew moved aside, leaving a grinning Alfonz to cut the strings around the carpet and shake it out.

It uncurled swiftly across the floor in a flurry of dust balls and moths and, eventually, Ptraci, who continued rolling until her head hit Teppic's boot.

He helped her to her feet and tried to pick bits of fluff out of her hair as she swayed backwards and forwards. She ignored him and turned to Chidder, red with breathlessness and fury.

'I could have died in there!' she shouted. 'Lots of other things have, by the smell! And the heat!'

'You said it worked for Queen wossname, Ram-Jam-Hurrah, or whoever,' said Chidder. 'Don't blame me, at home a necklace or something is usually the thing.'

'I bet she had a decent carpet,' snapped Ptraci. 'Not something stuck in a bloody hold for six months.'

'You're lucky we had one at all,' said Chidder mildly. 'It was your idea.'

'Huh,' said Ptraci. She turned to Teppic. 'Hallo,' she said. 'This was meant to be a startling original surprise.'

'It worked,' said Teppic fervently. 'It really worked.'

Chidder lay on a daybed on the palace's veranda, while three handmaidens took turns to peel grapes for him. A pitcher of beer stood cooling in the shade. He was grinning amiably.

On a blanket nearby Alfonz lay on his stomach, feeling extremely awkward. The Mistress of the Women had found out that, in addition to the tattoos on his forearms, his back was a veritable illustrated history of exotic practices, and had brought the girls out to be educated. He winced occasionally as her pointer stabbed at items of particular interest, and stuffed his fingers firmly in his great, scarred ears to shut out the giggles.

At the far end of the veranda, given privacy by unspoken agreement, Teppic sat with Ptraci. Things were not going well.

'Everything changed,' he said. 'I'm not going to be king.'

'You are the king,' she said. 'You can't change things.'

'I can. I can abdicate. It's very simple. If I'm not really the king, then I can go whenever I please. If I am the king, then the king's word is final and I can abdicate. If we can change sex by decree, we can certainly change station. They can find a relative to do the job. I must have dozens.'

'The job? Anyway, you said there was only your auntie.'

Teppic frowned. Aunt Cleph-ptah-re was not, on reflection, the kind of monarch a kingdom needed if it was going to make a fresh start. She had a number of stoutly-held views on a variety of subjects, but most of them involved the flaying alive of people she disapproved of. This meant most people under the age of thirty— five, to start with.

'Well, someone else, then,' he said. 'It shouldn't be difficult, we've always seemed to have more nobles than really necessary. We'll just have to find one who has the dream about the cows.'

'Oh, the one where there's fat cows and thin cows?' said Ptraci.

'Yes. It's sort of ancestral.'

'It's a nuisance, I know that much. One of them's always grinning and playing a wimblehorn.'

'It looks like a trombone to me,' said Teppic.

'It's a ceremonial wimblehorn, if you look closely,' she said.

'Well, I expect everyone sees it a bit differently. I don't think it matters.' He sighed, and watched the Unnamed unloading. It seemed to have more than the expected number of feather mattresses, and several of the people wandering bemusedly down the gangplank were holding toolboxes and lengths of pipe.

'I think you're going to find it difficult,' said Ptraci. 'You can't say «All those who dream about cows please step forward». It'd give the game away.'

'I can't just hang around until someone happens to mention it, can I? Be reasonable,' he snapped. 'How many people are likely to say, hey, I had this funny dream about cows last night? Apart from you, I mean.'

They stared at one another.

'And she's my sister?' said Teppic.

The priests nodded. It was left to Koomi to put it into words. He'd just spent ten minutes going through the files with the Mistress of the Women.

'Her mother was, er, your late father's favourite,' he said.

'He took a great deal of interest in her upbringing, as you know, and, er, it would appear that . . . yes. She may be your aunt, of course. The concubines are never very good at paperwork. But most likely your sister.'

She looked at him with tear-filled eyes.

'That doesn't make any difference, does it?' she whispered.

Teppic stared at his feet.

'Yes,' he said. 'I think it does, really.' He looked up at her. 'But you can be queen,' he added. He glared at the priests. 'Can't she,' he stated firmly.

The high priests looked at one another. Then they looked at Ptraci, who stood alone, her shoulders shaking. Small, palace trained, used to taking orders . . . They looked at Koomi.

'She would be ideal,' he said. There was a murmur of suddenly— confident agreement.

'There you are then,' said Teppic, consolingly.

She glared at him. He backed away.

'So I'll be off,' he said, 'I don't need to pack anything, it's all right.'

'Just like that?' she said. 'Is that all? Isn't there anything you're going to say?'

He hesitated, halfway to the door. You could stay, he told himself. It wouldn't work, though. It'd end up a terrible mess; you'd probably end up splitting the kingdom between you. Just because fate throws you together doesn't mean fate's got it right. Anyway, you've been forth.

'Camels are more important than pyramids,' he said slowly. 'It's something we should always remember.'

He ran for it while she was looking for something to throw.

The sun reached the peak of noon without beetles, and Koomi hovered by the throne like Hat, the Vulture-Headed God.

'It will please your majesty to confirm my succession as high priest,' he said.

'What?' Ptraci was sitting with her chin cupped in one hand. She waved the other hand at him. 'Oh. Yes. All right. Fine.'

'No trace has, alas, been found of Dios. We believe he was very close to the Great Pyramid when it . . . flared.'

Ptraci stared into space. 'You carry on,' she said. Koomi preened.

'The formal coronation will take some time to arrange,' he said, taking the golden mask. 'However, your graciousness will be pleased to wear the mask of authority now, for there is much formal business to be concluded.'

She looked at the mask.

'I'm not wearing that,' she said flatly.

Koomi smiled. 'Your majesty will be pleased to wear the mask of authority,' he said.

'No,' said Ptraci.

Koomi's smile crazed a little around the edges as he attempted to get to grips with this new concept. He was sure Dios had never had this trouble.

He got over the problem by sidling round it. Sidling had stood him in good stead all his life; he wasn't going to desert it now. He put the mask down very carefully on a stool.

'It is the First Hour,' he said. 'Your majesty will wish to conduct the Ritual of the Ibis, and then graciously grant an audience to the military commanders of the Tsortean and Ephebian armies. Both are seeking permission to cross the kingdom. Your majesty will forbid this. At the Second Hour, there will-'

Ptraci sat drumming her fingers on the arms of the throne. Then she took a deep breath. 'I'm going to have a bath,' she said.

Koomi rocked back and forth a bit.

'It is the First Hour,' he repeated, unable to think of anything else. 'Your majesty will wish to conduct-'

'Koomi?'

'Yes, O noble queen?'

'Shut up.'

'The Ritual of the Ibis-' Koomi moaned.

'I'm sure you're capable of doing it yourself. You look like a man who does things himself, if ever I saw one,' she added sourly.

'The commanders of the Tsortean-'

'Tell them,' Ptraci began, and then paused. 'Tell them,' she repeated, 'that they may both cross. Not one or the other, you understand? Both.'

'But-' Koomi 's understanding managed at last to catch up with his ears — 'that means they'll end up on opposite sides.'

'Good. And after that you can order some camels. There's a merchant in Ephebe with a good stock. Check their teeth first. Oh, and then you can ask the captain of the Unnamed to come and see me. He was explaining to me what a «free port» is.'

'In your bath, O queen?' said Koomi weakly. He couldn't help noticing, now, how her voice was changing with each sentence as the veneer of upbringing burned away under the blowlamp of heredity.

'Nothing wrong with that,' she snapped. 'And see about plumbing. Apparently pipes are the thing.'

'For the asses' milk?' said Koomi, who was now totally lost in the desert.

'Shut up, Koomi.'

'Yes, O queen,' said Koomi, miserably.

He'd wanted changes. It was just that he'd wanted things to stay the same, as well.

The sun dropped to the horizon, entirely unaided. For some people, it was turning out to be quite a good day. The reddened light lit up the three male members of the Ptaclusp dynasty, as they pored over plans for— 'It's called a bridge,' said IIb.

'Is that like an aqueduct?' said Ptaclusp.

'In reverse, sort of thing,' said IIb. 'The water goes underneath, we go over the top.'

'Oh. The k— the queen won't like that,' said Ptaclusp.

'The royal family's always been against chaining the holy river with dams and weirs and suchlike.'

IIb gave a triumphant grin. 'She suggested it,' he said. 'And she graciously went on to say, could we see to it there's places for people to stand and drop rocks on the crocodiles.'

'She said that?'

'Large pointy rocks, she said.'

'My word,' said Ptaclusp. He turned to his other son.

'You sure you're all right?' he said.

'Feeling fine, dad,' said IIa.

'No-' Ptaclusp groped 'headaches or anything?'

'Never felt better,' said IIa.

'Only you haven't asked about the cost,' said Ptaclusp. 'I thought perhaps you were still feeling fl— ill.'

'The queen has been pleased to ask me to have a look at the royal finances,' said IIa. 'She said priests can't add up.' His recent experiences had left him with no ill effects other than a profitable tendency to think at right angles to everyone else, and he sat wreathed in smiles while his mind constructed tariff rates, docking fees and a complex system of value added tax which would shortly give the merchant venturers of Ankh-Morpork a nasty shock.

Ptaclusp thought about all the miles of the virgin Djel, totally unbridged. And there was plenty of dressed stone around now, millions of tons of the stuff. And you never knew, perhaps on some of those bridges there'd be room for a statue or two. He had the very thing.

He put his arms around his sons' shoulders.

'Lads,' he said proudly. 'It's looking really quantum.'

The setting sun also shone on Dil and Gern, although in this case it was by a roundabout route through the lightwell of the palace kitchens. They'd ended up there for no very obvious reason. It was just that it was so depressing in the embalming room, all alone.

The kitchen staff worked around them, recognising the air of impenetrable gloom that surrounded the two embalmers. It was never a very sociable job at the best of times and embalmers didn't make friends easily. Anyway, there was a coronation feast to prepare.

They sat amid the bustle, observing the future over a jug of beer.

'I expect,' said Gern, 'that Gwlenda can have a word with her dad.'

'That's it, boy,' said Dil wearily. 'There's a future there. People will always want garlic.'

'Bloody boring stuff, garlic,' said Gern, with unusual ferocity. 'And you don't get to meet people. That's what I liked about our job. Always new faces.'

'No more pyramids,' said Dil, without rancour. 'That's what she said. You've done a good job, Master Dil, she said, but I'm going to drag this country kicking and screaming into the Century of the Fruitbat.'

'Cobra,' said Gern.

'What?'

'It's the Century of the Cobra. Not the Fruitbat.'

'Whatever,' said Dil irritably. He stared miserably into his mug. That was the trouble now, he reflected. You had to start remembering what century it was.

He glared at a tray of canapes. That was the thing these days. Everyone fiddling about .

He picked up an olive and turned it over and over in his fingers.

'Can't say I'd feel the same about the old job, mind,' said Gern, draining the jug, 'but I bet you were proud, master — Dil, I mean. You know, when all your stitching held up like that.'

Dil, his eyes not leaving the olive, reached dreamily down to his belt and grasped one of his smaller knives for intricate jobs.

'I said, you must have felt very sorry it was all over,' said Gern.

Dil swivelled around to get more light, and breathed heavily as he concentrated.

'Still, you'll get over it,' said Gern. 'The important thing is not to let it prey on your mind-'

'Put this stone somewhere,' said Dil.

'Sorry?'

'Put this stone somewhere,' said Dil.

Gern shrugged, and took it out of his fingers.

'Right,' said Dil, his voice suddenly vibrant with purpose.

'Now pass me a piece of red pepper .

And the sun shone on the delta, that little infinity of reed beds and mud banks where the Djel was laying down the silt of the continent. Wading birds bobbed for food in the green maze of stems, and billions of zig-zag midges danced over the brackish water. Here at least time had always passed, as the delta breathed twice daily the cold, fresh water of the tide.

It was coming in now, the foam-crested cusp of it trickling between the reeds.

Here and there soaked and ancient bandages unwound, wriggled for a while like incredibly old snakes and then, with the mininum of fuss, dissolved.

THIS IS MOST IRREGULAR.

We 're sorry. It's not our fault.

HOW MANY OF YOU ARE THERE?

More than 1,300, I'm afraid.

VERY WELL, THEN. PLEASE FORM AN ORDERLY QUEUE.

You Bastard was regarding his empty hay rack.

It represented a sub-array in the general cluster 'hay', containing arbitrary values between zero and K.

It didn't have any hay in it. It might in fact have a negative value of hay in it, but to the hungry stomach the difference between no hay and minus-hay was not of particular interest.

It didn't matter how he worked it out, the answer was always the same. It was an equation of classical simplicity. It had a certain clean elegance which he was not, currently, in a position to admire.

You Bastard felt ill-used and hard done by. There was nothing particularly unusual about this, however, since that is the normal state of mind for a camel. He knelt patiently while Teppic packed the saddlebags.

'We'll avoid Ephebe,' Teppic said, ostensibly to the camel. 'We'll go up the end of the Circle Sea, perhaps to Quirm or over the Ramtops. There's all sorts of places. Maybe we'll even look for a few of those cities, eh? I expect you'd like that.'

It's a mistake trying to cheer up camels. You may as well drop meringues into a black hole.

The door at the far end of the stable swung open. It was a priest. He looked rather flustered. The priests had been doing a lot of unaccustomed running around today.

'Er,' he began. 'Her majesty commands you not to leave the kingdom.'

He coughed.

He said, 'Is there a reply?'

Teppic considered. 'No,' he said, 'I don't think so.'

'So I shall tell her that you will be attending on her presently, shall I?' said the priest hopefully.

'No.'

'It's all very well for you to say,' said the priest sourly, and slunk off.

He was replaced a few minutes later by Koomi, very red in the face.

'Her majesty requests that you do not leave the kingdom,' he said.

Teppic climbed on to You Bastard's back, and tapped the camel lightly, with a prod.

'She really means it,' said Koomi.

'I'm sure she does.'

'She could have you thrown to the sacred crocodiles, you know.'

'I haven't seen many of them around today. How are they?' said Teppic, and gave the camel another thump.

He rode out into the knife-edged daylight and along the packed-earth streets, which time had turned into a surface harder than stone. They were thronged with people. And every single person ignored him.

It was a marvellous feeling.

He rode gently along the road to the border and did not stop until he was up in the escarpment, the valley spreading out behind him. A hot wind off the desert rattled the syphacia bushes as he tethered You Bastard in the shade, climbed a little further up the rocks, and looked back.

The valley was old, so old that you could believe it had existed first and had watched the rest of the world form around it. Teppic lay with his head on his arms.

Of course, it had made itself old. It had been gently stripping itself of futures for thousands of years. Now change was hitting it like the ground hitting an egg.

Dimensions were probably more complicated than people thought. Probably so was time. Probably so were people, although people could be more predictable.

He watched the column of dust rise outside the palace and work its way through the city, across the narrow patchwork of fields, disappear for a minute in a group of palm trees near the escarpment, and reappear at the foot of the slope. Long before he could see it he knew there'd be a chariot somewhere in the cloud of sand.

He slid back down the rocks and squatted patiently by the roadside. The chariot rattled by eventually, halted some way on, turned awkwardly in the narrow space, and trundled back.

'What will you do?' shouted Ptraci, leaning over the rail.

Teppic bowed.

'And none of that,' she snapped.

'Don't you like being king?'

She hesitated. 'Yes,' she said. 'I do-'

'Of course you do,' said Teppic. 'It's in the blood. In the old days people would fight like tigers. Brothers against sisters, cousins against uncles. Dreadful.'

'But you don't have to go! I need you!'

'You've got advisers,' said Teppic mildly.

'I didn't mean that,' she snapped. 'Anyway, there's only Koomi, and he's no good.'

'You're lucky. I had Dios, and he was good. Koomi will be much better, you can learn a lot by not listening to what he has to say. You can go a long way with incompetent advisers. Besides, Chidder will help, I'm sure. He's full of ideas.'

She coloured. 'He advanced a few when we were on the ship.'

'There you are, then. I knew the two of you would get along like a house on fire.' Screams, flames, people running for safety .

'And you're going back to be an Assassin, are you?' she sneered.

'I don't think so. I've inhumed a pyramid, a pantheon and the entire old kingdom. It may be worth trying something else. By the way, you haven't been finding little green shoots springing up wherever you walk, have you?'

'No. What a stupid idea.'

Teppic relaxed. It really was all over, then. 'Don't let the grass grow under your feet, that's the important thing,' he said. 'And you haven't seen any seagulls around?'

'There's lots of them today, or didn't you notice?'

'Yes. That's good, I think.'

You Bastard watched them talk a little more, that peculiar trailing-off, desultory kind of conversation that two people of opposite sexes engage in when they have something else on their minds. It was much easier with camels, when the female merely had to check the male's methodology.

Then they kissed in a fairly chaste fashion, insofar as camels are any judge. A decision was reached.

You Bastard lost interest at this point, and decided to eat his lunch again.

IN THE BEGINNING…

It was peaceful in the valley. The river, its banks as yet untamed, wandered languidly through thickets of rush and papyrus. Ibises waded in the shallows; in the deeps, hippos rose and sank slowly, like pickled eggs.

The only sound in the damp silence was the occasional plop of a fish or hiss of a crocodile.

Dios lay in the mud for some time. He wasn't sure how he'd got there, or why half his robes were torn off and the other half scorched black. He dimly recalled a loud noise and a sensation of extreme speed while, at the same time, he'd been standing still. Right at this moment, he didn't want any answers. Answers implied questions, and questions never got anyone anywhere. Questions only spoiled things. The mud was cool and soothing, and he didn't need to know anything else for a while.

The sun went down. Various nocturnal prowlers wandered near to Dios, and by some animal instinct decided that he certainly wasn't going to be worth all the trouble that would accrue from biting his leg off.

The sun rose again. Herons honked. Mist unspooled between the pools, was burned up as the sky turned from blue to new bronze.

And time unrolled in glorious uneventfulness for Dios until an alien noise took the silence and did the equivalent of cutting it into small pieces with a rusty breadknife.

It was a noise, in fact, like a donkey being chainsawed. As sounds went, it was to melody what a boxful of dates is to high— performance motocross. Nevertheless, as other voices joined it, similar but different, in a variety of fractured keys and broken tones, the overall effect was curiously attractive. It had lure. It had pull. It had a strange suction.

The noise reached a plateau, one pure note made of a succession of discordances, and then, for just the fraction of a second, the voices split away, each along a vector .

There was a stirring of the air, a flickering of the sun.

And a dozen camels appeared over the distant hills, skinny and dusty, running towards the water. Birds erupted from the reeds. Leftover saurians slid smoothly off the sandbanks. Within a minute the shore was a mass of churned mud as the knobbly-kneed creatures jostled, nose deep in the water.

Dios sat up, and saw his staff lying in the mud. It was a little scorched, but still intact, and he noticed what somehow had never been apparent before. Before? Had there been a before? There had certainly been a dream, something like a dream .

Each snake had its tail in its mouth.

Down the slope after the camels, his ragged family trailing behind him, was a small brown figure waving a camel prod. He looked hot and very bewildered.

He looked, in fact, like someone in need of good advice and careful guidance.

Dios's eyes turned back to the staff. It meant something very important, he knew. He couldn't remember what, though. All he could remember was that it was very heavy, yet at the same time hard to put down. Very hard to put down. Better not to pick it up, he thought.

Perhaps just pick it up for a while, and go and explain about gods and why pyramids were so important. And then he could put it down afterwards, certainly.

Sighing, pulling the remnants of his robes around him to give himself dignity, using the staff to steady himself, Dios went forth.

 

THE END