Pyramids (10 page)

Teppic looked at his father. The embalmers had done a good job. They were waiting for him to tell them so.

Part of him, which still lived in Ankh-Morpork, said: this is a dead body, wrapped up in bandages, surely they can’t think that this will help him
get better
? In Ankh, you die and they bury you or burn you or throw you to the ravens. Here, it just means you slow down a bit and get given all the best food. It’s ridiculous, how can you run a kingdom like this? They seem to think that being dead is like being deaf, you just have to speak up a bit.

But a second, older voice said: We’ve run a kingdom like this for seven thousand years. The humblest melon farmer has a lineage that makes kings elsewhere look like mayflies. We used to own the continent, before we sold it again to pay for pyramids. We don’t even
think
about other countries less than three thousand years old. It all seems to work.

“Hallo, father,” he said.

The shade of Teppicymon XXVII, which had been watching him closely, hurried across the room.

“
You’re looking well!
” he said. “
Good to see you! Look, this is urgent. Please pay attention, it’s about death
—”

“He says he is pleased to see you,” said Dios.

“You can hear him?” said Teppic. “I didn’t hear anything.”

“The dead, naturally, speak through the priests,” said the priest. “That is the custom, sire.”

“But he can hear me, can he?”

“Of course.”

“
I’ve been thinking about this whole pyramid business and, look, I’m not certain about it.
”

Teppic leaned closer. “Auntie sends her love,” he said loudly. He thought about this. “That’s my aunt, not yours.” I hope, he added.

“
I say? I say? Can you hear me?
”

“He bids you greetings from the world beyond the veil,” said Dios.

“
Well, yes, I suppose I do, but LOOK, I don’t want you to go to a lot of trouble and build
—”

“We’re going to build you a marvelous pyramid, father. You’ll really like it there. There’ll be people to look after you and everything.” Teppic glanced at Dios for reassurance. “He’ll like that, won’t he?”

“
I don’t WANT one
!” screamed the king. “
There’s a whole interesting eternity I haven’t seen yet. I forbid you to put me in a pyramid!
”

“He says that is very proper, and you are a dutiful son,” said Dios.

“
Can you see me? How many fingers am I holding up? Think it’s fun, do you, spending the rest of your death under a million tons of rock, watching yourself crumble to bits? Is that your idea of a good epoch?
”

“It’s rather drafty in here, sire,” said Dios. “Perhaps we should get on.”

“
Anyway, you can’t possibly afford it!
”

“And we’ll put your favorite frescoes and statues in with you. You’ll like that, won’t you,” said Teppic desperately. “All your bits and pieces around you.”

“He will like it, won’t he?” he asked Dios, as they walked back to the throne room. “Only, I don’t know, I somehow got a feeling he isn’t too happy about it.”

“I assure you, sire,” said Dios, “he can have no other desire.”

Back in the embalming room King Teppicymon XXVII tried to tap Gern on the shoulder, which had no effect. He gave up and sat down beside himself.

“
Don’t do it, lad,
” he said bitterly. “
Never have descendants.
”

And then there was the Great Pyramid itself.

Teppic’s footsteps echoed on the marble tiles as he walked around the model. He wasn’t sure what one was supposed to do here. But kings, he suspected, were often put in that position; there was always the good old fallback, which was known as taking an interest.

“Well, well,” he said. “How long have you been designing pyramids?”

Ptaclusp, architect and jobbing pyramid builder to the nobility, bowed deeply.

“All my life, O light of noonday.”

“It must be fascinating,” said Teppic. Ptaclusp looked sidelong at the high priest, who nodded.

“It has its points, O fount of waters,” he ventured. He wasn’t used to kings talking to him as though he was a human being. He felt obscurely that it wasn’t right.

Teppic waved a hand at the model on its podium.

“Yes,” he said uncertainly. “Well. Good. Four walls and a pointy tip. Jolly good. First class. Says it all, really.” There still seemed to be too much silence around. He plunged on.

“Good show,” he said. “I mean, there’s no doubt about it. This is…a…pyramid. And what a pyramid it is! Indeed.”

This still didn’t seem enough. He sought for something else. “People will look at it in centuries to come and they’ll say, they’ll say…that
is
a pyramid. Um.”

He coughed. “The walls slope nicely,” he croaked.

“But,” he said.

Two pairs of eyes swiveled toward his.

“Um,” he said.

Dios raised an eyebrow.

“Sire?”

“I seem to remember once, my father said that, you know, when he died, he’d quite like to, sort of thing, be buried at sea.”

There wasn’t the choke of outrage he had expected. “He meant the delta. It’s very soft ground by the delta,” said Ptaclusp. “It’d take months to get decent footings in. Then there’s your risk of sinking. And the damp. Not good, damp, inside a pyramid.”

“No,” said Teppic, sweating under Dios’s gaze, “I think what he meant was, you know,
in
the sea.”

Ptaclusp’s brow furrowed. “Tricky, that,” he said thoughtfully. “Interesting idea. I suppose one
could
build a small one, a million tonner, and float it out on pontoons or something…”

“No,” said Teppic, trying not to laugh, “I think what he meant was, buried
without
—”

“Teppicymon XXVII means that he would want to be buried without delay,” said Dios, his voice like greased silk. “And there is no doubt that he would require to honor the very best you can build, architect.”

“No, I’m sure you’ve got it wrong,” said Teppic.

Dios’s face froze. Ptaclusp’s slid into the waxen expression of someone with whom it is, suddenly, nothing to do. He started to stare at the floor as if his very survival depended on his memorizing it in extreme detail.

“Wrong?” said Dios.

“No offense. I’m sure you mean well,” said Teppic. “It’s just that, well, he seemed very clear about it at the time and—”

“I mean well?” said Dios, tasting each word as though it was a sour grape. Ptaclusp coughed. He had finished with the floor. Now he started on the ceiling.

Dios took a deep breath. “
Sire
,” he said, “we have always been pyramid builders. All our kings are buried in pyramids. It is how we do things, sire. It is how things are done.”

“Yes, but—”

“It does not admit of dispute,” said Dios. “Who could wish for anything else? Sealed with all artifice against the desecrations of Time—” now the oiled silk of his voice became armor, hard as steel, scornful as spears—“Shielded for all Time against the insults of Change.”

Teppic glanced down at the high priest’s knuckles. They were white, the bone pressing through the flesh as though in a rage to escape.

His gaze slid up the gray-clad arm to Dios’s face. Ye gods, he thought, it’s really true, he
does
look like they got tired of waiting for him to die and pickled him anyway. Then his eyes met those of the priest, more or less with a clang.

He felt as though his flesh was being very slowly blown off his bones. He felt that he was no more significant than a mayfly. A necessary mayfly, certainly, a mayfly that would be accorded all due respect, but still an insect with all the rights thereof. And as much free will, in the fury of that gaze, as a scrap of papyrus in a hurricane.

“The king’s will is that he be interred in a pyramid,” said Dios, in the tone of voice the Creator must have used to sketch out the moon and stars.

“Er,” said Teppic.

“The finest of pyramids for the king,” said Dios.

Teppic gave up.

“Oh,” he said. “Good. Fine. Yes. The very best, of course.”

Ptaclusp beamed with relief, produced his wax tablet with a flourish, and took a stylus from the recesses of his wig. The important thing, he knew, was to clinch the deal as soon as possible. Let things slip in a situation like this and a man could find himself with 1,500,000 tons of bespoke limestone on his hands.

“Then that will be the standard model, shall we say, O water in the desert?”

Teppic looked at Dios, who was standing and glaring at nothing now, staring the bulldogs of Entropy into submission by willpower alone.

“I think something larger,” he ventured hopelessly.

“That’s the Executive,” said Ptaclusp. “Very exclusive, O base of the eternal column. Last you a perpetuality. Also our special offer this eon is various measurements of paracosmic significance built into the very fabric at no extra cost.”

He gave Teppic an expectant look.

“Yes. Yes. That will be fine,” said Teppic.

Dios took a deep breath. “The king requires far more than that,” he said.

“I do?” said Teppic, doubtfully.

“Indeed, sire. It is your express wish that the greatest of monuments is erected for your father,” said Dios smoothly. This was a contest, Teppic knew, and he didn’t know the rules or how to play and he was going to
lose
.

“It is? Oh. Yes. Yes. I suppose it is, really. Yes.”

“A pyramid unequaled along the Djel,” said Dios. “That is the command of the king. It is only right and proper.”

“Yes, yes, something like that. Er. Twice the normal size,” said Teppic desperately, and had the brief satisfaction of seeing Dios look momentarily disconcerted.

“Sire?” he said.

“It is only right and proper,” said Teppic.

Dios opened his mouth to protest, saw Teppic’s expression, and shut it again.

Ptaclusp scribbled busily, his adam’s apple bobbing. Something like this only happened once in a business career.

“Can do you a very nice black marble facing on the outside,” he said, without looking up. “We may have
just
enough in the quarry. O king of the celestial orbs,” he added hurriedly.

“Very good,” said Teppic.

Ptaclusp picked up a fresh tablet. “Shall we say the capstone picked out in electrum? It’s cheaper to have built in right from the start, you don’t want to use just silver and then say later, I wish I’d had a—”

“Electrum, yes.”

“And the usual offices?”

“What?”

“The burial chamber, that is, and the outer chamber. I’d recommend the Memphis, very select, that comes with a matching extra large treasure room, so handy for all those little things one cannot bear to leave behind.” Ptaclusp turned the tablet over and started on the other side. “And of course a similar suite for the Queen, I take it? O King who shall live forever.”

“Eh? Oh, yes. Yes. I suppose so,” said Teppic, glancing at Dios. “Everything. You know.”

“Then there’s mazes,” said Ptaclusp, trying to keep his voice steady. “Very popular this era. Very important, your maze, it’s no good deciding you ought to have put a maze in after the robbers have been. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I’d go for the Labrys every time. Like we say, they may get in all right, but they’ll never get out. It costs that little bit extra, but what’s money at a time like this? O master of the waters.”

Something we don’t have, said a warning voice in the back of Teppic’s head. He ignored it. He was in the grip of destiny.

“Yes,” he said, straightening up. “The Labrys. Two of them.”

Ptaclusp’s stylus went through his tablet.

“His ‘n’ hers, O stone of stones,” he croaked. “Very handy, very convenient. With selection of traps from stock? We can offer deadfalls, pitfalls, sliders, rolling balls, dropping spears, arrows—”

“Yes, yes,” said Teppic. “We’ll have them. We’ll have them all. All of them.”

The architect took a deep breath.

“And of course you’ll require all the usual steles, avenues, ceremonial sphinxes—” he began.

“Lots,” said Teppic. “We leave it entirely up to you.”

Ptaclusp mopped his brow.

“Fine,” he said. “Marvellous.” He blew his nose. “Your father, if I may make so bold, O sower of the seed, is extremely fortunate in having such a dutiful son. I may add—”

“You may
go,
” said Dios. “And we will expect work to start imminently.”

“Without delay, I assure you,” said Ptaclusp. “Er.”

He seemed to be wrestling with some huge philosophical problem.

“Yes?” said Dios coldly.

“It’s uh. There’s the matter of uh. Which is not to say uh. Of course, oldest client, valued customer, but the fact is that uh. Absolutely no doubt about credit worthiness uh. Would not wish to suggest in any way whatsoever that uh.”

Dios gave him a stare that would have caused a sphinx to blink and look away.

“You wish to say something?” he said. “His majesty’s time is extremely limited.”

Ptaclusp worked his jaw silently, but the result was a foregone conclusion. Even gods had been reduced to sheepish mumbling in the face of Dios’s face. And the carved snakes on his staff seemed to be watching him too.

“Uh. No, no. Sorry. I was just, uh, thinking aloud. I’ll depart, then, shall I? Such a lot of work to be done. Uh.” He bowed low.

He was halfway to the archway before Dios added: “Completion in three months. In time for Inundation.”
^*

“
What?
”

“You are talking to the 1,398th monarch,” said Dios icily.

Ptaclusp swallowed. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I mean,
what?
, O great king. I mean, block haulage alone will take. Uh.” The architect’s lips trembled as he tried out various comments and, in his imagination, ran them full tilt into Dios’s stare. “Tsort wasn’t built in a day,” he mumbled.

“We do not believe we laid the specifications for that job,” said Dios. He gave Ptaclusp a smile. In some ways it was worse than everything else. “We will, of course,” he said, “pay extra.”