Pyramids

‘Something to look forward to, eh?’ said Teppic, feverishly screwing bits together.

‘It would certainly be preferable to many alternatives,’ said Dios.

In the darkness Teppic ran his fingers over the little coded knobs on the darts. Most of the really spectacular poisons would have evaporated or dissolved into harmlessness by now, but there were a number of lesser potions designed to give their clients nothing more than a good night’s sleep. An assassin might have to work his way to an inhumee past a number of alert bodyguards. It was considered impolite to inhume them as well.

‘You could let us go,’ said Teppic. ‘I suspect that’s what you want, isn’t it? For me to go away and never come back? That suits me fine.’

Dios hesitated.

‘You’re supposed to say “And let the girl go”,’ he said.

‘Oh, yes. And that, too,’ said Teppic.

‘No. I would be failing in my duty to the king,’ said Dios.

‘For goodness sake, Dios, you know I am the king!’

‘No. I have a very clear picture of the king. You are not the king,’ said the high priest.

Teppic peered over the edge of the camel stall. The camel peered over his shoulder.

And then the world went mad.

All right, madder.

All the pyramids were blazing now, filling the sky with their sooty light as the brothers Ptaclusp struggled to the main working platform.

IIa collapsed on the planking, wheezing like an elderly bellows. A few feet away the sloping side was hot to the touch, and there was no doubt in his mind now that the pyramid was creaking, like a sailing ship in a gale. He had never paid much attention to the actual mechanics as opposed to the cost of pyramid construction, but he was pretty certain that the noise was as wrong as II and II making V.

His brother reached out to touch the stone, but drew his hand back as small sparks flashed around his fingers.

‘You can feel the warmth,’ he said. ‘It’s astonishing!’

‘Why?’

‘Heating up a mass like this. I mean, the sheer tonnage …’

‘I don’t like it, Two-bee,’ IIa quavered. ‘Let’s just leave the stone here, shall we? I’m sure it’ll be all right, and in the morning we can send a gang up here, they’ll know exactly what—’

His words were drowned out as another flare crackled across the sky and hit the column of dancing air fifty feet above them. He grabbed part of the scaffolding.

‘Sod take this,’ he said. ‘I’m off.’

‘Hang on a minute,’ said IIb. ‘I mean, what is creaking? Stone can’t creak.’

‘The whole bloody scaffolding is moving, don’t be daft!’ He stared goggle-eyed at his brother. ‘Tell me it’s the scaffolding,’ he pleaded.

‘No, I’m certain this time. It’s coming from inside.’

They stared at one another, and then at the rickety ladder leading up to the tip, or to where the tip should be.

‘Come on!’ said IIb. ‘It can’t flare off, it’s trying to find ways of discharging—’

There was a sound as loud as the groaning of continents.

Teppic felt it. He felt that his skin was several sizes too small. He felt that someone was holding his ears and trying to twist his head off.

He saw the guard captain sag to his knees, fighting to get his helmet off, and he leapt the stall.

Tried to leap the stall. Everything was wrong, and he landed heavily on a floor that seemed undecided about becoming a wall. He managed to get to his feet and was pulled sideways, dancing awkwardly across the stable to keep his balance.

The stables stretched and shrank like a picture in a distorting mirror. He’d gone to see some once in Ankh, the three of them hazarding a half-coin each to visit the transient marvels of Dr Mooner’s Travelling Take Your Breath Away Emporium. But he knew then that it was only twisted glass that was giving you a head like a sausage and legs like footballs. Teppic wished he could be so certain that what was happening around him would allow of such a harmless explanation. You’d probably need a wobbly glass mirror to make it look normal.

He ran on taffy legs towards Ptraci and the high priest as the world was expanded and squeezed around him, and was momentarily gratified to see the girl squirm in Dios’s grip and fetch him a tidy thump on the ear.

He moved as though in a dream, with the distances changing as though reality was an elastic thing. Another step sent him cannoning into the pair of them. He grabbed Ptraci’s arm and staggered back to the camel stall, where the creature was still cudding and watching the scene with the nearest thing a camel will ever get to mild interest, and snatched its halter.

No one seemed to be interested in stopping them as they helped each other through the doorway and out into the mad night.

‘It helps if you shut your eyes,’ said Ptraci.

Teppic tried it. It worked. A stretch of courtyard that his eyes told him was a quivering rectangle whose sides twanged like bowstrings became, well, just a courtyard under his feet.

‘Gosh, that was clever,’ he said. ‘How did you think of that?’

‘I always shut my eyes when I’m frightened,’ said Ptraci.

‘Good plan.’

‘What’s happening?’