'I'm identifying them, Grandma. We've come to let you out.'
'I was hammering hours,' said the late queen, emerging into the sunlight. She looked exactly like the king, except that the mummy wrappings were greyer and dusty. 'I had to go and have a lie down, come the finish. No-one cares about you when you're dead. Where're we going?'
'To let the others out,' said the king.
'Damn good idea.' The old queen lurched into step behind him.
'So this is the netherworld, is it?' she said. 'Not much of an improvement.' She elbowed Gern sharply. 'You dead too, young man?'
'No, ma'am,' said Gern, in the shaky brave tones of someone on a tightrope over the chasms of madness.
'It's not worth it. Be told.'
'Yes, ma'am.'
The king shuffled across the ancient pavings to the next pyramid.
'I know this one,' said the queen. 'It was here in my day. King Ashk-ur-men-tep. Third Empire. What's the hammer for, young man?'
'Please, ma'am, I have to hammer on the door, ma'am,' said Gern.
'You don't have to knock. He's always in.'
'My assistant means to smash the seals, ma'am,' said Dil, anxious to please.
'Who're you?' the queen demanded.
'My name is Dil, O queen. Master embalmer.'
'Oh, you are, are you? I've got some stitching wants seeing to.'
'It will be an honour and a privilege, O queen,' said Dil.
'Yes. It will,' she said, and turned creakily to Gern. 'Hammer away, young man!' she said.
Spurred by this, Gern brought the hammer round in a long, fast arc. It passed in front of Dil's nose making a noise like a partridge and smashed the seal into pieces.
What emerged, when the dust had settled, was not dressed in the height of fashion. The bandages were brown and mouldering and, Dil noticed with professional concern, already beginning to go at the elbows. When it spoke, it was like the opening of ancient caskets.
'I woket up,' it said. 'And theyre was noe light. Is thys the netherworld?'
'It would appear not,' said the queen.
'Thys is all?'
'Hardly worth the trouble of dying, was it?' said the queen. The ancient king nodded, but gently, as though he was afraid his head would fall off.
'Somethyng,' he said, 'must be done.'
He turned to look at the Great Pyramid, and pointed with what had once been an arm.
'Who slepes there?' he said.
'It's mine, actually,' said Teppicymon, lurching forward. 'I don't think we've met, I haven't been interred as yet, my son built it for me. It was against my better judgement, believe me.'
'It ys a dretful thyng,' said the ancient king. 'I felt its building. Even in the sleep of deathe I felt it. It is big enough to interr the worlde.'
'I wanted to be buried at sea,' said Teppicymon. 'I hate pyramids.'
'You do not,' said Ashk-ur-men-tep.
'Excuse me, but I do,' said the king, politely.
'But you do not. What you feel nowe is myld dislike. When you have lain in one for a thousand yeares,' said the ancient one, 'then you will begin to know the meaning of hate.'
Teppicymon shuddered.
'The sea,' he said. 'That's the place. You just dissolve away.
They set off towards the next pyramid. Gern led the way, his face a picture, possibly one painted late at night by an artist who got his inspiration on prescription. Dil followed. He held his chest high. He'd always hoped to make his way in the world and here he was now, walking with kings.
Well. Lurching with kings.
It was another nice day in the high desert. It was always a nice day, if by nice you meant an air temperature like an oven and sand you could roast chestnuts on.
You Bastard ran fast, mainly to keep his feet off the ground for as long as possible. For a moment as they staggered up the hills outside the olive-tree'd, field-patchworked oasis around Ephebe, Teppic thought he saw the Unnamed as a tiny speck on the azure sea. But it might have been just a gleam on a wave.
Then he was over the crest, into a world of yellow and umber. For a while scrubby trees held on against the sand, but the sand won and marched triumphantly onwards, dune after dune.
The desert was not only hot, it was quiet. There were no birds, none of the susurration of organic creatures busily being alive. At night there might have been the whine of insects, but they were deep under the sand against the scorch of day, and the yellow sky and yellow sand became an anechoic chamber in which You Bastard's breath sounded like a steam-engine.
Teppic had learned many things since he first went forth from the Old Kingdom, and he was about to learn one more. All authorities agree that when crossing the scorching desert it is a good idea to wear a hat.
You Bastard settled into the shambling trot that a prime racing camel can keep up for hours.
After a couple of miles Teppic saw a column of dust behind the next dune. Eventually they came up behind the main body of the Ephebian army, swinging along around half-a-dozen battle elephants, their helmet plumes waving in the oven breeze. They cheered on general principles as Teppic went past.
Battle elephants! Teppic groaned. Tsort went in for battle elephants, too. Battle elephants were the fashion lately. They weren't much good for anything except trampling on their own troops when they inevitably panicked, so the military minds on both sides had responded by breeding bigger elephants. Elephants were impressive.
For some reason, many of these elephants were towing great carts full of timber.
He jogged onwards as the sun wound higher and, and this was unusual, blue and purple dots began to pinwheel gently across the horizon.
Another strange thing was happening. The camel seemed to be trotting across the sky. Perhaps this had something to do with the ringing noise in his ears.
Should he stop? But then the camel might fall off.
It was long past noon when You Bastard staggered into the baking shade of the limestone outcrop which had once marked the edge of the valley, and collapsed very slowly into the sand. Teppic rolled off.
A detachment of Ephebians were staring across the narrow space towards a very similar number of Tsorteans on the other side. Occasionally, for the look of the thing, one of them waved a spear.
When Teppic opened his eyes it was to see the fearsome bronze masks of several Ephebian soldiers peering down at him. Their metal mouths were locked in sneers of terrible disdain. Their shining eyebrows were twisted in mortal anger.
One of them said, 'He's coming round, sarge.'
A metal face like the anger of the elements came closer, filling Teppic's vision.
'We've been out without our hat, haven't we, sonny boy,' it said, in a cheery voice that echoed oddly inside the metal. 'In a hurry to get to grips with the enemy, were we?'
The sky wheeled around Teppic, but a thought bobbed into the frying pan of his mind, seized control of his vocal chords and croaked: 'The camel!'
'You ought to be put away, treating it like that,' said the sergeant, waggling a finger at him. 'Never seen one in such a state.'
'Don't let it have a drink!' Teppic sat bolt upright, great gongs clanging and hot, heavy fireworks going off inside his skull. The helmeted heads turned towards one another.
'Gods, he must have something really terrible against camels,' said one of them. Teppic staggered upright and lurched across the sand to You Bastard, who was trying to work out the complex equation which would allow him to get to his feet. His tongue was hanging out, and he was not feeling well.
A camel in distress isn't a shy creature. It doesn't hang around in bars, nursing a solitary drink. It doesn't phone up old friends and sob at them. It doesn't mope, or write long soulful poems about Life and how dreadful it is when seen from a bedsitter. It doesn't know what angst is.
All a camel has got is a pair of industrial-strength lungs and a voice like a herd of donkeys being chainsawed.
Teppic advanced through the blaring. You Bastard reared his
head and turned it this way and that, triangulating. His eyes rolled madly as he did the camel trick of apparently looking at Teppic with his nostrils.
He spat.
He tried to spit.
Teppic grabbed his halter and pulled on it.
'Come on, you bastard,' he said. 'There's water. You can smell it. All you have to do is work out how to get there!'
He turned to the assembled soldiers. They were staring at him with expressions of amazement, apart from those who hadn't removed their helmets and who were staring at him with expressions of metallic ferocity.
Teppic snatched a water skin from one of them, pulled out the stopper and tipped it on to the ground in front of the camel's twitching nose.
'There's a river here,' he hissed. 'You know where it is, all you've got to do is go there!'
The soldiers looked around nervously. So did several Tsorteans, who had wandered up to see what was going on.
You Bastard got to his feet, knees trembling, and started to spin around in a circle. Teppic clung on.
. . . let d equal 4, thought You Bastard desperately. Let a.d equal 90. Let not-d equal 45 . . .
'I need a stick!' shouted Teppic, as he was whirled past the sergeant. 'They never understand anything unless you hit them with a stick, it's like punctuation to a camel!'
'Is a sword any good?'
'No!'
The sergeant hesitated, and then passed Teppic his spear. He grabbed it point-end first, fought for balance, and then brought it smartly across the camel's flank, raising a cloud of dust and hair.
You Bastard stopped. His ears turned like radar aerials. He stared at the rock wall, rolling his eyes. Then, as Teppic grabbed a handful of hair and pulled himself up, the camel started to trot.
. . . Think fractals . . .
'Ere, you're going to run straight-' the sergeant began.
There was silence. It went on for a long time.
The sergeant shifted uneasily. Then he looked across the rocks to the Tsorteans, and caught the eye of their leader. With the unspoken understanding that is shared by centurions and sergeant-majors everywhere, they walked towards one another along the length of the rocks and stopped by the barely visible crack in the cliff.
The Tsortean sergeant ran his hand over it.
'You'd think there'd be some, you know, camel hairs or something,' he said.
'Or blood,' said the Ephebian.
'I reckon it's one of them unexplainable phenomena.'
'Oh. That's all right, then.'
The two men stared at the stone for a while.
'Like a mirage,' said the Tsortean, helpfully.
'One of them things, yes.'
'I thought I heard a seagull, too.'
'Daft, isn't it. You don't get them out here.'
The Tsortean coughed politely, and stared back at his men.
Then he leaned closer.
'The rest of your people will be along directly, I expect,' he said.
The Ephebian stepped a bit closer and when he spoke, it was out of the corner of his mouth while his eyes apparently remained fully occupied by looking at the rocks.
'That's right,' he said. 'And yours too, may I ask?'
'Yes. I expect we'll have to massacre you if ours get here first.'
'Likewise, I shouldn't wonder. Still, can't be helped.'
'One of those things, really,' agreed the Tsortean. The other man nodded. 'Funny old world, when you come to think about it.'
'You've put your finger on it, all right.' The sergeant loosened his breastplate a bit, glad to be out of the sun. 'Rations okay on your side?' he said.
'Oh, you know. Mustn't grumble.'
'Like us, really.'
''Cos if you do grumble, they get even worse.'
'Just like ours. Here, you haven't got any figs on your side, have you? I could just do with a fig.'
'Sorry.'
'Just thought I'd ask.'
'Got plenty of dates, if they're any good to you.'
'We're okay on dates, thanks.'
'Sorry.'
The two men stood awhile, lost in their own thoughts. Then the Ephebian put on his helmet again, and the Tsortean adjusted his belt.
'Right, then.'
'Right, then.'
They squared their shoulders, stuck out their chins, and marched away. A moment later they turned about smartly and, exchanging the merest flicker of an embarrassed grin, headed back to their own sides.
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, beca
use 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?'
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