Pyramids tds-7

by Terry David John Pratchett

  But there was a shadow against the pyramid light, and a voice said, 'Psst.'

  She flattened herself against the wall and tried to reach up to the slit.

  'Who are you?'

  'I'm here to help you. Oh damn. Do they call this a window? Look, I'm lowering a rope.'

  A thick silken cord, knotted at intervals, dropped past her shoulder. She stared at it for a second or two, and then kicked off her curly-toed shoes and climbed up it.

  The face on the other side of the slit was half-concealed by a black hood, but she could just make out a worried expression.

  'Don't despair,' it said.

  'I wasn't despairing. I was trying to get some sleep.'

  'Oh. Pardon me, I'm sure. I'll just go away and leave you, shall I?'

  'But in the morning I shall wake up and then I'll despair. What are you standing on, demon?'

  'Do you know what a crampon is?'

  'No.'

  'Well, it's two of them.'

  They stared at each other in silence.

  'Okay,' said the face at last. 'I'll have to go around and come in through the door. Don't go away.' And with that it vanished upwards.

  Ptraci let herself slide back down to the chilly stones of the floor. Come in through the door! She wondered how it could manage that. Humans would need to open it first.

  She crouched in the furthest corner of the cell, staring at the small rectangle of wood.

  Long minutes went past. At one point she thought she heard a tiny noise, like a gasp.

  A little later there was subtle clink of metal, so slight as to be almost beyond the range of hearing.

  More time wound on to the spool of eternity and then the silence beyond the cell, which had been the silence caused by absence of sound, very slowly became the silence caused by someone making no noise.

  She thought: It's right outside the door.

  There was a pause in which Teppic oiled all the bolts and hinges so that, when he made the final assault, the door swished open in heart-gripping noiselessness.

  'I say?' said a voice in the darkness.

  Ptraci pressed herself still further into the corner.

  'Look, I've come to rescue you.'

  Now she could make out a blacker shadow in the flarelight. It stepped forward with rather more uncertainty than she would have expected from a demon.

  'Are you coming or not?' it said. 'I've only knocked out the guards, it's not their fault, but we haven't got a lot of time.'

  'I'm to be thrown to the crocodiles in the morning,' whispered Ptraci. 'The king himself decreed it.'

  'He probably made a mistake.'

  Ptraci's eyes widened in horrified disbelief.

  'The Soul Eater will take me!' she said.

  'Do you want it to?'

  Ptraci hesitated.

  'Well, then,' said the figure, and took her unresisting hand. He led her out of the cell, where she nearly tripped over the prone body of a guard.

  'Who is in the other cells?' he said, pointing to the line of doors along the passage.

  'I don't know,' said Ptraci.

  'Let's find out, shall we?'

  The figure touched a can to the bolts and hinges of the next door and pushed it open. The flare from the narrow window illuminated a middle-aged man, seated cross-legged on the floor.

  'I'm here to rescue you,' said the demon. The man peered up at him.

  'Rescue?' he said.

  'Yes. Why are you here?'

  The man hung his head. 'I spoke blasphemy against the king.'

  'How did you do that?'

  'I dropped a rock on my foot. Now my tongue is to be torn out.'

  The dark figure nodded sympathetically.

  'A priest heard you, did he?' he said.

  'No. I told a priest. Such words should not go unpunished,' said the man virtuously.

  We're really good at it, Teppic thought. Mere animals couldn't possibly manage to act like this. You need to be a human being to be really stupid. 'I think we ought to talk about this outside,' he said. 'Why not come with me?'

  The man pulled back and glared at him.

  'You want me to run away?' he said.

  'Seems a good idea, wouldn't you say?'

  The man stared into his eyes, his lips moving silently. Then he appeared to reach a decision.

  'Guards!' he screamed.

  The shout echoed through the sleeping palace. His would-be rescuer stared at him in disbelief.

  'Mad,' Teppic said. 'You're all mad.'

  He stepped out of the room, grabbed Ptraci's hand, and hurried along the shadowy passages. Behind them the prisoner made the most of his tongue while he still had it and used it to scream a stream of imprecations.

  'Where are you taking me?' said Ptraci, as they marched smartly around a corner and into a pillar-barred courtyard.

  Teppic hesitated. He hadn't thought much beyond this point.

  'Why do they bother to bolt the doors?' he demanded, eyeing the pillars. 'That's what I want to know. I'm surprised you didn't wander back to your cell while I was in there.'

  'I — I don't want to die,' she said quietly.

  'Don't blame you.'

  'You mustn't say that! It's wrong not to want to die!' Teppic glanced up at the roof around the courtyard and unslung his grapnel.

  'I think I ought to go back to my cell,' said Ptraci, without actually making any move in that direction. 'It's wrong even to think of disobeying the king.'

  'Oh? What happens to you, then?'

  'Something bad,' she said vaguely.

  'You mean, worse than being thrown to the crocodiles or having your soul taken by the Soul Eater?' said Teppic, and caught the grapnel firmly on some hidden ledge on the flat roof.

  'That's an interesting point,' said Ptraci, winning the Teppic Award for clear thinking.

  'Worth considering, isn't it?' Teppic tested his weight on the cord.

  'What you're saying is, if the worst is going to happen to you anyway, you might as well not bother any more,' said Ptraci. 'If the Soul Eater is going to get you whatever you do, you might as well avoid the crocodiles, is that it?'

  'You go up first,' said Teppic, 'I think someone's coming.'

  'Who are you?'

  Teppic fished in his pouch. He'd come back to Djeli an aeon ago with just the clothes he stood up in, but they were the clothes he'd stood up in throughout his exam. He balanced a Number Two throwing knife in his hand, the steel glinting in the flarelight. It was possibly the only steel in the country; it wasn't that Djelibeybi hadn't heard about iron, it was just that if copper was good enough for your great-great-great-great— grandfather, it was good enough for you.

  No, the guards didn't deserve knives. They hadn't done anything wrong.

  His hand closed over the little mesh bag of caltraps. These were a small model, a mere one inch per spike. Caltraps didn't kill anyone, they just slowed them down a bit. One or two of them in the sole of the foot induced extreme slowness and caution in all except the terminally enthusiastic.

  He scattered a few across the mouth of the passage and ran back to the rope, hauling himself up in a few quick swings. He reached the roof just as the leading guards ran under the lintel. He waited until he heard the first curse, and then coiled up the rope and hurried after the girl.

  'They'll catch us,' she said.

  'I don't think so.'

  'And then the king will have us thrown to the crocodiles.'

  'Oh no, I don't think-' Teppic paused. It was an intriguing idea.

  'He might,' he ventured. 'It's very hard to be sure about anything.'

  'So what shall we do now?'

  Teppic stared across the river, where the pyramids were ablaze. The Great Pyramid was still under construction, by flarelight; a swarm of blocks, dwarfed by distance, hovered near its tip. The amount of labour Ptaclusp was putting on the job was amazing.

  What a flare that will give, he thought. It'll be seen all the way to Ankh.

  'Horrible
things, aren't they,' said Ptraci, behind him.

  'Do you think so?'

  'They're creepy. The old king hated them, you know. He said they nailed the Kingdom to the past.'

  'Did he say why?'

  'No. He just hated them. He was a nice old boy. Very kind. Not like this new one.' She blew her nose and replaced her handkerchief in its scarcely adequate space in her sequinned bra.

  'Er, what exactly did you have to do? As a handmaiden, I mean?' said Teppic, scanning the rooftop panorama to hide his embarrassment.

  She giggled. 'You're not from around here, are you?'

  'No. Not really.'

  'Talk to him, mainly. Or just listen. He could really talk, but he always said no-one ever really listened to what he said.'

  'Yes,' said Teppic, with feeling. 'And that was all, was it?'

  She stared at him, and then giggled again. 'Oh, that? No, he was very kind. I wouldn't of minded, you understand, I had all the proper training. Bit of a disappointment, really. The women of my family have served under the kings for centuries, you know.'

  'Oh yes?' he managed.

  'I don't know whether you've ever seen a book, it's called The Shuttered-'

  '-Palace,' said Teppic automatically.

  'I thought a gentleman like you'd know about it,' said Ptraci, nudging him. 'It's a sort of textbook. Well, my great— great-grandmother posed for a lot of the pictures. Not recently,' she added, in case he hadn't fully understood, 'I mean, that would be a bit off-putting, she's been dead for twenty-five years. When she was younger. I look a lot like her, everyone says.'

  'Urk,' agreed Teppic.

  'She was famous. She could put her feet behind her head, you know. So can I. I've got my Grade Three.'

  'Urk?'

  'The old king told me once that the gods gave people a sense of humour to make up for giving them sex. I think he was a bit upset at the time.'

  'Urk.' Only the whites of Teppic's eyes were showing.

  'You don't say much, do you?'

  The breeze of the night was blowing her perfume towards him. Ptraci used scent like a battering ram.

  'We've got to find somewhere to hide you,' he said, concentrating on each word. 'Haven't you got any parents or anything?' He tried to ignore the fact that in the shadowless flarelight she appeared to glow, and didn't have much success.

  'Well, my mother still works in the palace somewhere,' said Ptraci. 'But I don't think she'd be very sympathetic.'

  'We've got to get you away from here,' said Teppic fervently. 'If you can hide somewhere today, I can steal some horses or a boat or something. Then you could go to Tsort or Ephebe or somewhere.'

  'Foreign, you mean? I don't think I'd like that,' said Ptraci.

  'Compared to the netherworld?'

  'Well. Put like that, of course . . .' She took his arm. 'Why did you rescue me?'

  'Er? Because being alive is better than being dead, I think.'

  'I've read up to number 46, Congress of the Five Auspicious Ants,' said Ptraci. 'If you've got some yoghurt, we could-'

  'No! I mean, no. Not here. Not now. There must be people looking for us, it's nearly dawn.'

  'There's no need to yelp like that! I was just trying to be kind.'

  'Yes. Good. Thank you.' Teppic broke away and peered desperately over a parapet into one of the palace's numerous light wells.

  'This leads to the embalmers' workshops,' he said. 'There must be plenty of places to hide down here.' He unwound the cord again.

  Various rooms led off the well. Teppic found one lined with benches and floored with wood shavings; a doorway led through to another room stacked with mummy cases, each one surmounted by the same golden dolly face he'd come to know and loathe. He tapped on a few, and raised the lid of the nearest.

  'No-one at home,' he said. 'You can have a nice rest in here. I can leave the lid open a bit so you can get some air.'

  'You can't think I'd risk that? Supposing you didn't come back!'

  'I'll be back tonight,' said Teppic. 'And — and I'll see if I can drop some food and water in some time today. She stood on tiptoe, her ankle bangles jingling all the way down Teppic's libido. He glanced down involuntarily and saw that every toenail was painted. He remembered Cheesewright telling them behind the stables one lunch-hour that girls who painted their toenails were . . . well, he couldn't quite remember now, but it had seemed pretty unbelievable at the time.

  'It looks very hard,' she said.

  'What?'

  'If I've got to lie in it, it'll need some cushions.'

  'I'll put some wood shavings in, look!' said Teppic. 'But hurry up! Please!'

  'All right. But you will be back, won't you? Promise?'

  'Yes, yes! I promise!'

  He wedged a splinter of wood on the case to allow an airhole, heaved the lid back on and ran for it.

  The ghost of the king watched him go.

  The sun rose. As the golden light spilled down the fertile valley of the Djel the pyramid flares paled and became ghost dancers against the lightening sky. They were now accompanied by a noise. It had been there all the time, far too high-pitched for mortal ears, a sound now dropping down from the far ultrasonic KKKkkkkkkhhheeee. . .

  It screamed out of the sky, a thin rind of sound like a violin bow dragged across the raw surface of the brain.

  kkkkheeeeeee. . .

  Or a wet fingernail dragged over an exposed nerve, some said. You could set your watch by it, they would have said, if anyone knew what one was.

  . . .keeee. . .

  It went deeper and deeper as the sunlight washed over the stones, passing through cat scream to dog growl.

  . . .ee. . . ee. . . ee.

  The flares collapsed.

  . . .ops.

  'A fine morning, sire. I trust you slept well?'

  Teppic waved a hand at Dios, but said nothing. The barber was working through the Ceremony of Going Forth Shaven.

  The barber was trembling. Until recently he had been a one— handed, unemployed stonemason. Then the terrible high priest had summoned him and ordered him to be the king's barber, but it meant you had to touch the king but it was all right because it was all sorted out by the priests and nothing more had to be chopped off. On the whole, it was better than he had thought, and a great honour to be singlehandedly responsible for the king's beard, such as it was.

  'You were not disturbed in any way?' said the high priest. His eyes scanned the room on a raster of suspicion; it was surprising that little lines of molten rock didn't drip off the walls.

  'Verrr-'

  'If you would but hold still, O never-dying one,' said the barber, in the pleading tone of voice employed by one who is assured of a guided tour of a crocodile's alimentary tract if he nicks an ear.

  'You heard no strange noises, sire?' said Dios. He stepped back suddenly so that he could see behind the gilded peacock screen at the other end of the room.

  'Norr.'

  'Your majesty looks a little peaky this morning, sire,' said Dios. He sat down on the bench with the carved cheetahs on either end. Sitting down in the presence of the king, except on ceremonial occasions, was not something that was allowed. It did, however, mean that he could squint under Teppic's low bed.

  Dios was rattled. Despite the aches and the lack of sleep, Teppic felt oddly elated. He wiped his chin.

  'It's the bed,' he said. 'I think I have mentioned it. Mattresses, you know. They have feathers in them. If the concept is unfamiliar, ask the pirates of Khali. Half of them must be sleeping on goosefeather mattresses by now.'

  'His majesty is pleased to joke,' said Dios.

  Teppic knew he shouldn't push it any further, but he did so anyway.

  'Something wrong, Dios?' he said.

  'A miscreant broke into the palace last night. The girl Ptraci is missing.'

  'That is very disturbing.'

  'Yes, sire.'

  'Probably a suitor or a swain or something.'

  Dios's face was like stone. 'P
ossibly, sire.

  'The sacred crocodiles will be going hungry, then.' But not for long, Teppic thought. Walk to the end of any of the little jetties down by the bank, let your shadow fall on the river, and the mud-yellow water would become, by magic, mud-yellow bodies. They looked like large, sodden logs, the main difference being that logs don't open at one end and bite your legs off. The sacred crocodiles of the Djel were the kingdom's garbage disposal, river patrol and occasional morgue.

  They couldn't simply be called big. If one of the huge bulls ever drifted sideways on to the current, he'd dam the river.

  The barber tiptoed out. A couple of body servants tiptoed in.

  'I anticipated your majesty's natural reaction, sire,' Dios continued, like the drip of water in deep limestone caverns.

  'Jolly good,' said Teppic, inspecting the clothes for the day. 'What was it, exactly?'

  'A detailed search of the palace, room by room.'

  'Absolutely. Carry on, Dios.'

  My face is perfectly open, he told himself. I haven't twitched a muscle out of place. I know I haven't. He can read me like a stele. I can outstare him.

  'Thank you, sire.'

  'I imagine they'll be miles away by now,' said Teppic. 'Whoever they were. She was only a handmaiden, wasn't she?'

  'It is unthinkable that anyone could disobey your judgements! There is no-one in the kingdom that would dare to! Their souls would be forfeit! They will be hunted down, sire! Hunted down and destroyed!'

  The servants cowered behind Teppic. This wasn't mere anger. This was wrath. Real, old-time, vintage wrath. And waxing? It waxed like a hatful of moons.

  'Are you feeling all right, Dios?'

  Dios had turned to look out across the river. The Great Pyramid was almost complete. The sight of it seemed to calm him down or, at least, stabilise him on some new mental plateau.

  'Yes, sire,' he said. 'Thank you.' He breathed deeply. 'Tomorrow, sire, you are pleased to witness the capping of the pyramid. A momentous occasion. Of course, it will be some time before the interior chambers are completed.'

  'Fine. Fine. And this morning, I think, I should like to visit my father.'

  'I am sure the late king will be pleased to see you, sire. It is your wish that I should accompany you.'

  'Oh.'

  It's a fact as immutable as the Third Law of Sod that there is no such thing as a good Grand Vizier. A predilection to cackle and plot is apparently part of the job spec.