Pyramids (Discworld #7)

'It must make you feel really proud,' said Gern.

'What?'

'Well, our mam says the king goes on living, sort of thing, after all this stuffing and stitching. Sort of in the Netherworld. With your stitching in him.'

And several sacks of straw and a couple of buckets of pitch, thought the shade of the king sadly. And the wrapping off Gern's lunch, although he didn't blame the lad, who'd just forgotten where he'd put it. All eternity with someone's lunch wrapping as part of your vital organs. There had been half a sausage left, too.

He'd become quite attached to Dil, and even to Gern. He seemed still to be attached to his body, too - at least, he felt uncomfortable if he wandered more than a few hundred yards away from it - and so in the course of the last couple of days he'd learned quite a lot about them.

Funny, really. He'd spent the whole of his life in the kingdom talking to a few priests and so forth. He knew objectively there had been other people around - servants and gardeners and so forth - but they figured in his life as blobs. He was at the top, and then his family, and then the priests and the nobles of course, and then there were the blobs. Damn fine blobs, of course, some of the finest blobs in the world, as loyal a collection of blobs as a king might hope to rule. But blobs, none the less.

But now he was absolutely engrossed in the daily details of Dil's shy hopes for advancement within the Guild, and the unfolding story of Gern's clumsy overtures to Glwenda, the garlic farmer's daughter who lived nearby. He listened in fascinated astonishment to the elaboration of a world as full of subtle distinctions of grade and station as the one he had so recently left; it was terrible to think that he might never know if Gern overcame her father's objections and won his intended, or if Dil's work on this job - on him - would allow him to aspire to the rank of Exalted Grand Ninety-Degree Variance of the Matron Lodge of the Guild of Embalmers and Allied Trades.

It was as if death was some astonishing optical device which turned even a drop of water into a complex hive of life.

He found an overpowering urge to counsel Dil on elementary politics, or apprise Gern of the benefits of washing and looking respectable. He tried it several times. They could sense him, there was no doubt about that. But they just put it down to draughts.

Now he watched Dil pad over to the big table of bandages, and come back with a thick swatch which he held reflectively against what even the king was now prepared to think of as his corpse.

'I think the linen,' he said at last. 'It's definitely his colour.'

Gern put his head on one side.

'He'd look good in the hessian,' he said. 'Or maybe the calico.'

'Not the calico. Definitely not the calico. On him it's too big.'

'He could moulder into it. With wear, you know.'

Dil snorted. 'Wear? Wear? You shouldn't talk to me about calico and wear. What happens if someone robs the tomb in a thousand years' time and him in calico, I'd like to know. He'd lurch halfway down the corridor, maybe throttle one of them, I'll grant you, but then he's coming undone, right? The elbows'll be out in no time, I'll never live it down.'

'But you'll be dead, master!'

'Dead? What's that got to do with it?' Dil riffled through the samples. 'No, it'll be the hessian. Got plenty of give in it, hessian. Good traction, too. He'll really be able to lurch up speed in the passages, if he ever needs to.'

The king sighed. He'd have preferred something lightweight in taffeta.

'And go and shut the door,' Dil added. 'It's getting breezy in here.'

'And now it's time,' said the high priest, 'for us to see our late father.' He allowed himself a quiet smile. 'I am sure he is looking forward to it,' he added.

Teppic considered this. It wasn't something he was looking forward to, but at least it would get everyone's mind off him marrying relatives. He reached down in what he hoped was a kingly fashion to stroke one of the palace cats. This also was not a good move. The creature sniffed it, went cross-eyed with the effort of thought, and then bit his fingers.

'Cats are sacred,' said Dios, shocked at the words Teppic uttered.

'Long-legged cats with silver fur and disdainful expressions are, maybe,' said Teppic, nursing his hand, 'I don't know about this sort. I'm sure sacred cats don't leave dead ibises under the bed. And I'm certain that sacred cats that live surrounded by endless sand don't come indoors and do it in the king's sandals, Dios.'

'All cats are cats,' said Dios, vaguely, and added, 'If we would be so gracious as to follow us.' He motioned Teppic towards a distant arch.

Teppic followed slowly. He'd been back home for what seemed like ages, and it still didn't feel right. The air was too dry. The clothes felt wrong. It was too hot. Even the buildings seemed wrong. The pillars, for one thing. Back home, back at the Guild, pillars were gracefull fluted things with little bunches of stone grapes and things around the top. Here they were massive pear-shaped lumps, where all the stone had run to the bottom.

Half a dozen servants trailed behind him, carrying the various items of regalia.

He tried to imitate Dios's walk, and found the movements coming back to him. You turned your torso this way, then you turned your head this way, and extended your arms at forty-five degrees to your body with the palms down, and then you attempted to move.

The high priest's staff raised echoes as it touched the flagstones. A blind man could have walked barefoot through the palace by tracing the time-worn dimples it had created over the years.

'I am afraid that we will find that our father has changed somewhat since we last saw him,' said Dios conversationally, as they undulated by the fresco of Queen Khaphut accepting Tribute from the Kingdoms of the World.

'Well, yes,' said Teppic, bewildered by the tone. 'He's dead, isn't he?'

'There's that, too,' said Dios, and Teppic realised that he hadn't been referring to something as trivial as the king's current physical condition.

He was lost in a horrified admiration. It wasn't that Dios was particularly cruel or uncaring, it was simply that death was a mere irritating transition in the eternal business of existence. The fact that people died was just an inconvenience, like them being out when you called.

It's a strange world, he thought. It's all busy shadows, and it never changes. And I'm part of it.

'Who's he?' he said, pointing to a particularly big fresco showing a tall man with a hat like a chimney and a beard like a rope riding a chariot over a lot of other, much smaller, people.

'His name is in the cartouche below,' said Dios primly.

'What?'

'The small oval, sire,' said Dios.

Teppic peered closely at the dense hieroglyphics.

'“Thin eagle, eye, wiggly line, man with a stick, bird sitting down, wiggly line”,' he read. Dios winced.

'I believe we must apply ourselves more to the study of modem languages,' he said, recovering a bit. 'His name is Pta-ka-ba. He is king when the Djel Empire extends from the Circle Sea to the Rim Ocean, when almost half the continent pays tribute to us.'

Teppic realised what it was about the man's speech that was strange. Dios would bend any sentence to breaking point if it meant avoiding a past tense. He pointed to another fresco.

'And her?' he said.

'She is Queen Khat-leon-ra-pta,' said Dios. 'She wins the kingdom of Howandaland by stealth. This is the time of the Second Empire.'

'But she is dead?' said Teppic.

'I understand so,' said the high priest, after the slightest of pauses. Yes. The past tense definitely bothered Dios.

'I have learned seven languages,' said Teppic, secure in the knowledge that the actual marks he had achieved in three of them would remain concealed in the ledgers of the Guild.

'Indeed, sire?'

'Oh, yes. Morporkian, Vanglemesht, Ephebe, Laotation and several others . . .' said Teppic.

'Ah.' Dios nodded, smiled, and continued to proceed down the corridor, limping slightly but still measuring his pace like the ticking of centuries. 'The barbarian lands.'

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 marvellous 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 draughty in here, sire,' said Dios. 'Perhaps we should get on.'

'Anyway, you can't possibly afford it!'

'And we'll put your favourite 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 be?' 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.