Pyramids tds-7

by Terry David John Pratchett

  'I was there before the kingdom, er, went,' said Teppic. 'I thought I saw the big pyramid move.'

  'There you are then. It's probably moved the dimensions around by ninety degrees,' said Pthagonal, with the assurance of the truly drunk.

  'You mean, so length is height and height is width?'

  Pthagonal shook an unsteady finger.

  'Nonono,' he said. 'So that length is height and height is breadth and breadth is width and width is a', he burped 'A 'time. S'nother dimessnon, see? Four of the bastards. Time's one of them. Ninety thingys to the other three. Degrees is what I mean. Only, only, it can't exist in this world like that, so the place had to sort of pop outside for a bit, see? Otherwise you'd have people getting older by walking sideways. He looked sadly into the depths of his cup. 'And every birthday you'd age another mile,' he added. Teppic looked at him aghast.

  'That's time and space for you,' Pthagonal went on. 'You can twist them all over the place if you're not careful. Three point one four one. What sort of a number d'you call that?'

  'It sounds horrible,' said Teppic.

  'Damn right. Somewhere,' Pthagonal was beginning to sway on his bench, 'somewhere someone built a universe with a decent, respectable value of, of,' he peered blankly at the table, 'of pie. Not some damn number that never comes to an end, what kind of a'

  'I meant, people getting older just by walking along!'

  'I dunno, though. You could have a stroll back to where you were eighteen. Or wander up and see what you are going to look like when you're seventy. Travelling in width, though, that'd be the real trick.'

  Pthagonal smiled vacantly and then, very slowly, keeled over into his dinner, some of which moved out of the way25. Teppic became aware that the philosophic din around him had subsided a bit. He stared along the line until he spotted Ibid.

  'It won't work,' said Ibid. 'The Tyrant won't listen to us. Nor will the people. Anyway' he glanced at Antiphon — 'we're not all of one mind on the subject.'

  'Damn Tsorteans need teaching a lesson,' said Antiphon sternly. 'Not room for two major powers on this continent. Damn bad sports, anyway, just because we stole their queen. Youthful high spirits, love will have its way'

  Copolymer woke up.

  'You've got it wrong,' he said mildly. 'The great war, that was because they stole our queen. What was her name now, face that launched a thousand camels, began with an A or a T or-'

  'Did they?' shouted Antiphon. 'The bastards!'

  'I'm reasonably certain,' said Copolymer.

  Teppic sagged, and turned to Endos the Listener. He was still eating his dinner, with the air of one who is determined to preserve his digestion.

  'Endos?'

  The Listener laid his knife and fork carefully on either side of his plate.

  'Yes?'

  'They're really all mad, aren't they?' said Teppic wearily. 'That's extremely interesting,' said Endos. 'Do go on.' He reached shyly into his toga and brought forth a scrap of parchment, which he pushed gently towards Teppic.

  'What's this?'

  'My bill,' said Endos. 'Five minutes Attentive Listening. Most of my gentlemen have monthly accounts, but I understand you'll be leaving in the morning?'

  Teppic gave up. He wandered away from the table and into the cold garden surrounding the citadel of Ephebe. White marble statues of ancient Ephebians doing heroic things with no clothes on protruded through the greenery and, here and there, there were statues of Ephebian gods. It was hard to tell the difference. Teppic knew that Dios had hard words to say about the Ephebians for having gods that looked just like people. If the gods looked just like everyone else, he used to say, how would people know how to treat them?

  Teppic had rather liked the idea. According to legend the Ephebians' gods were just like humans, except that they used their godhood to get up to things humans didn't have the nerve to do. A favourite trick of Ephebian gods, he recalled, was turning into some animal in order to gain the favours of highly-placed Ephebian women. And one of them had reputedly turned himself into a golden shower in pursuit of his intended. All this raised interesting questions about everyday night life in sophisticated Ephebe.

  He found Ptraci sitting on the grass under a poplar tree, feeding the tortoise. He gave it a suspicious look, in case it was a god trying it on. It did not look like a god. If it was a god, it was putting on an incredibly good act.

  She was feeding it a lettuce leaf.

  'Dear little ptortoise,' she said, and then looked up. 'Oh, it's you,' she said flatly.

  'You didn't miss much,' said Teppic, sagging on to the grass. 'They're a bunch of maniacs. When I left they were smashing the plates.'

  'That's ptraditional at the end of an Ephebian meal,' said Ptraci.

  Teppic thought about this. 'Why not before?' he said.

  'And then they probably dance to the sound of the bourzuki,' Ptraci added. 'I think it's a sort of dog.'

  Teppic sat with his head in his hands.

  'I must say you speak Ephebian well,' he said. 'Pthank you.'

  'Just a trace of an accent, though.'

  'Languages is part of the ptraining,' she said. 'And my grandmother told me that a ptrace of foreign accent is more fascinating.'

  'We learned the same thing,' said Teppic. 'An assassin should always be slightly foreign, no matter where he is. I'm good at that part,' he added bitterly.

  She began to massage his neck.

  'I went down to the harbour,' she said. 'There's those things like big rafts, you know, camels of the sea'

  'Ships,' said Teppic.

  'And they go everywhere. We could go anywhere we want. The world is our pthing with pearls in it, if we like.'

  Teppic told her about Pthagonal's theory. She didn't seem surprised.

  'Like an old pond where no new water comes in,' she observed. 'So everyone goes round and round in the same old puddle. All the ptime you live has been lived already. It must be like other people's bathwater.'

  'I'm going to go back.'

  Her fingers stopped their skilled kneading of his muscles.

  'We could go anywhere,' she repeated. 'We've got ptrades, we could sell that camel. You could show me that Ankh-Morpork place. It sounds interesting.'

  Teppic wondered what effect Ankh-Morpork would have on the girl. Then he wondered what effect she would have on the city. She was definitely flowering. Back in the Old Kingdom she'd never apparently had any original thoughts beyond the choice of the next grape to peel, but since she was outside she seemed to have changed. Her jaw hadn't changed, it was still quite small and, he had to admit, very pretty. But somehow it was more noticeable. She used to look at the ground when she spoke to him. She still didn't always look at him when she spoke to him, but now it was because she was thinking about something else.

  He found he kept wanting to say, politely, without stressing it in any way, just as a very gentle reminder, that he was king. But he had a feeling that she'd say she hadn't heard, and would he please repeat it, and if she looked at him he'd never be able to say it twice.

  'You could go,' he said. 'You'd get on well. I could give you a few names and addresses.'

  'And what would you do?'

  'I dread to think what's going on back home,' said Teppic. 'I ought to do something.'

  'You can't. Why ptry? Even if you didn't want to be an assassin there's lots of pthings you could do. And you said the man said it's not a place people could get into any more. I hate pyramids.'

  'Surely there's people there you care about?'

  Ptraci shrugged. 'If they're dead there's nothing I can do about it,' she said. 'And if they're alive, there's nothing I 'can do about it. So I shan't.'

  Teppic stared at her in a species of horrified admiration. It was a beautiful summary of things as they were. He just couldn't bring himself to think that way. His body had been away for seven years but his blood had been in the kingdom for a thousand times longer. Certainly he'd wanted to leave it behind, but that was the whole point. It
would have been there. Even if he'd avoided it for the rest of his life, it would have still been a sort of anchor.

  'I feel so wretched about it,' he repeated. 'I'm sorry. That's all there is to it. Even to go back for five minutes, just to say, well, that I'm not coming back. That'd be enough. It's probably all my fault.'

  'But there isn't a way back! You'll just hang around sadly, like those deposed kings you ptold me about. You know, with pthreadbare cloaks and always begging for their food in a high— class way. There's nothing more useless than a king without a kingdom, you said. Just think about it.'

  They wandered through the sunset streets of the city, and towards the harbour. All streets in the city led towards the harbour.

  Someone was just putting a torch to the lighthouse, which was one of the More Than Seven Wonders of the World and had been built to a design by Pthagonal using the Golden Rule and the Five Aesthetic Principles. Unfortunately it had then been built in the wrong place because putting it in the right place would have spoiled the look of the harbour, but it was generally agreed by mariners to be a very beautiful lighthouse and something to look at while they were waiting to be towed off the rocks.

  The harbour below it was thronged with ships. Teppic and Ptraci picked their way past crates and bundles until they reached the long curved guard wall, harbour calm on one side, choppy with waves on the other. Above them the lighthouse flared and sparked.

  Those boats would be going to places he'd only ever heard of, he knew. The Ephebians were great traders. He could go back to Ankh and get his diploma, and then the world would indeed be the mollusc of his choice and he had any amount of knives to open it with.

  Ptraci put her hand in his.

  And there'd be none of this marrying relatives business. The months in Djelibeybi already seemed like a dream, one of those circular dreams that you never quite seem able to shake off and which make insomnia an attractive prospect. Whereas here was a future, unrolling in front of him like a carpet.

  What a chap needed at a time like this was a sign, some sort of book of instructions. The trouble with life was that you didn't get a chance to practise before doing it for real. You only— 'Good grief? It's Teppic, isn't it?' The voice was addressing him from ankle height. A head appeared over the stone of the jetty, quickly followed by its body. An extremely richly dressed body, one on which no expense had been spared in the way of gems, furs, silks and laces, provided that all of them, every single one, was black.

  It was Chidder.

  'What's it doing now?' said Ptaclusp.

  His son poked his head cautiously over the ruins of a pillar and watched Hat, the Vulture-Headed God.

  'It's sniffing around,' he said. 'I think it likes the statue. Honestly, dad, why did you have to go and buy a thing like that?'

  'It was in a job lot,' said Ptaclusp. 'Anyway, I thought it would be a popular line.'

  'With who?'

  'Well, he likes it.'

  Ptaclusp IIb risked another squint at the angular monstrosity that was still hopping around the ruins.

  'Tell him he can have it if he goes away,' he suggested.

  'Tell him he can have it at cost.'

  Ptaclusp winced. 'At a discount,' he said. 'A special cut rate for our supernatural customers.

  He stared up at the sky. From their hiding place in the ruins of the construction camp, with the Great Pyramid still humming like a powerhouse behind them, they'd had an excellent view of the arrival of the gods. At first he'd viewed them with a certain amount of equanimity. Gods would be good customers, they always wanted temples and statues, he could deal directly, cut out the middle man.

  And then it had occurred to him that a god, when he was unhappy about the product, as it might be, maybe the plasterwork wasn't exactly as per spec, or perhaps a corner of the temple was a bit low on account of unexpected quicksand, a god didn't just come around demanding in a loud voice to see the manager. No. A god knew exactly where you were, and got to the point. Also, gods were notoriously bad payers. So were humans, of course, but they didn't actually expect you to die before they settled the account.

  His gaze turned to his other son, a painted silhouette against the statue, his mouth a frozen O of astonishment, and Ptaclusp reached a decision.

  'I've just about had it with pyramids,' he said. 'Remind me, lad. If we ever get out of here, no more pyramids. We've got set in our ways. Time to branch out, I reckon.'

  'That's what I've been telling you for ages, dad!' said IIb. 'I've told you, a couple of decent aqueducts will make a tremendous-'

  'Yes, yes, I remember,' said Ptaclusp. 'Yes. Aqueducts. All those arches and things. Fine. Only I can't remember where you said you have to put the coffin in.'

  'Dad!'

  'Don't mind me, lad. I think I'm going mad.'

  I couldn't have seen a mummy and two men over there, carrying sledgehammers.

  It was, indeed, Chidder.

  And Chidder had a boat.

  Teppic knew that further along the coast the Seriph of Al— Khali lived in the fabulous palace of the Rhoxie, which was said to have been built in one night by a genie and was famed in myth and legend for its splendour26. The Unnamed was the Rhoxie afloat, but more so. Its designer had a gilt complex, and had tried every trick with gold paint, curly pillars and expensive drapes to make it look less like a ship and more like a boudoir that had collided with a highly suspicious type of theatre.

  In fact, you needed an assassin's eyes for hidden detail to notice how innocently the gaudiness concealed the sleekness of the hull and the fact, even when you added the cabin space and the holds together, that there still seemed to be a lot of capacity unaccounted for. The water around what Ptraci called the pointed end was strangely rippled, but it would be totally ridiculous to suspect such an obvious merchantman of having a concealed ramming spike underwater, or that a mere five minutes' work with an axe would turn this wallowing Alcdzar into something that could run away from nearly everything else afloat and make the few that could catch up seriously regret it.

  'Very impressive,' said Teppic.

  'It's all show, really,' said Chidder.

  'Yes. I can see that.'

  'I mean, we're poor traders.'

  Teppic nodded. 'The usual phrase is «poor but honest traders»,' he said.

  Chidder smiled a merchant's smile. 'Oh, I think we'll stick on «poor» at the moment. How the hell are you, anyway? Last we heard you were going off to be king of some place no-one's ever heard of. And who is this lovely young lady?'

  'Her name' Teppic began.

  'Ptraci,' said Ptraci.

  'She's a hand-' Teppic began.

  'She must surely be a royal princess,' said Chidder smoothly. 'And it would give me the greatest pleasure if she, if indeed both of you, would dine with me tonight. Humble sailor's fare, I'm afraid, but we muddle along, we muddle along.'

  'Not Ephebian, is it?' said Teppic.

  'Ship's biscuit, salt beef, that sort of thing,' said Chidder, without taking his eyes off Ptraci. They hadn't left her since she came on board.

  Then he laughed. It was the old familiar Chidder laugh, not exactly without humour, but clearly well under the control of its owner's higher brain centres.

  'What an astonishing coincidence,' he said. 'And us due to sail at dawn, too. Can I offer you a change of clothing? You both look somewhat, er, travel-stained.'

  'Rough sailor clothing, I expect,' said Teppic. 'As befits a humble merchant, correct me if I'm wrong?'

  In fact Teppic was shown to a small cabin as exquisitely and carefully furnished as a jewelled egg, where there was laid upon the bed as fine an assortment of clothing as could be found anywhere on the Circle Sea. True, it all appeared second-hand, but carefully laundered and expertly stitched so that the sword cuts hardly showed at all. He gazed thoughtfully at the hooks on the wall, and the faint patching on the wood which hinted that various things had once been hung there and hastily removed.

  He stepped out into the n
arrow corridor, and met Ptraci. She'd chosen a red court dress such as had been the fashion in Ankh-Morpork ten years previously, with puffed sleeves and vast concealed underpinnings and ruffs the size of millstones.

  Teppic learned something new, which was that attractive women dressed in a few strips of gauze and a few yards of silk can actually look far more desirable when fully clad from neck to ankle. She gave an experimental twirl.

  'There are any amount of things like this in there,' she said. 'Is this how women dress in Ankh-Morpork? It's like wearing a house. It doesn't half make you sweaty.'

  'Look, about Chidder,' said Teppic urgently. 'I mean, he's a good fellow and everything, but-'

  'He's very kind, isn't he,' she agreed.

  'Well. Yes. He is,' Teppic admitted, hopelessly. 'He's an old friend.'

  'That's nice.'

  One of the crew materialised at the end of the corridor and bowed them into the state cabin, his air of old retainership marred only by the criss-cross pattern of scars on his head and some tattoos that made the pictures in The Shuttered Palace look like illustrations in a DIY shelving manual. The things he could make them do by flexing his biceps could keep entire dockside taverns fascinated for hours, and he was not aware that the worst moment of his entire life was only a few minutes away.

  'This is all very pleasant,' said Chidder, pouring some wine. He nodded at the tattooed man. 'You may serve the soup, Alfonz,' he added.

  'Look, Chiddy, you're not a pirate, are you?' said Teppic, desperately.

  'Is that what's been worrying you?' Chidder grinned his lazy grin.

  It wasn't everything that Teppic had been worrying about, but it had been jockeying for top position. He nodded.

  'No, we're not. We just prefer to, er, avoid paperwork wherever possible. You know? We don't like people to have all the worry of having to know everything we do.'

  'Only there's all the clothes-'

  'Ah. We get attacked by pirates a fair amount. That's why father had the Unnamed built. It always surprises them. And the whole thing is morally sound. We get their ship, their booty, and any prisoners they may have get rescued and given a ride home at competitive rates.'