Pyramids

‘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 a 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, stabilize 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.

High priests tend to get put in the same category. They have to face the implied assumption that no sooner do they get the funny hat than they’re issuing strange orders, e.g., princesses tied to rocks for itinerant sea monsters and throwing little babies in the sea.

This is a gross slander. Throughout the history of the Disc most high priests have been serious, pious and conscientious men who have done their best to interpret the wishes of the gods, sometimes disembowelling or flaying alive hundreds of people in a day in order to make sure they’re getting it absolutely right.

King Teppicymon XXVII’s casket lay in state. Crafted it was for foryphy, smaradgine, skelsa and delphinet, inlaid it was with pink jade and shode, perfumed and fumed it was with many rare resins and perfumes …

It looked very impressive but, the king considered, it wasn’t worth dying for. He gave up and wandered across the courtyard.

A new player had entered the drama of his death.

Grinjer, the maker of models.

He’d always wondered about the models. Even a humble farmer expected to be buried with a selection of crafted livestock, which would somehow become real in the Netherworld. Many a man made do with one cow like a toast rack in this world in order to afford a pedigree herd in the next. Nobles and kings got the complete set, including model carts, houses, boats and anything else too big or inconvenient to fit in the tomb. Once on the other side, they’d somehow become the genuine article.

The king frowned. When he was alive he’d known that it was true. Not doubted it for a moment …

Grinjer stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as, with great care, he tweezered a tiny oar to a perfect 1/80th scale river trireme. Every flat surface in his corner of the workshop was stacked with midget animals and artifacts; some of his more impressive ones hung from wires on the ceiling.

The king had already ascertained from overheard conversation that Grinjer was twenty-six, couldn’t find anything to stop the inexorable advance of his acne, and lived at home with his mother. Where, in the evenings, he made models. Deep in the duffel coat of his mind he hoped one day to find a nice girl who would understand the absolute importance of getting every detail right on a ceremonial six-wheeled ox cart, and who would hold his glue-pot, and always be ready with a willing thumb whenever anything needed firm pressure until the paste dried.