Pyramids

Dios's boat slid gently through the water and bumped into the jetty. Dios climbed out and hurried into the palace, bounding up the steps three at a time and rubbing his hands together at the thought of a fresh day laid out before him, every hour and ritual ticking neatly into place. So much to organise, so much to be needed for . . .

The chief sculptor and maker of mummy cases folded up his measure.

'You done a good job there, Master Dil,' he said.

Dil nodded. There was no false modesty between craftsmen. The sculptor gave him a nudge. 'What a team, eh?' he said. 'You pickle 'em, I crate 'em.'

Dil nodded, but rather more slowly. The sculptor looked down at the wax oval in his hands.

'Can't say I think much of the death mask, mind,' he said. Gern, who was working hard on the corner slab on one of the Queen's late cats, which he had been allowed to do all by himself, looked up in horror.

'I done it very careful,' he said sulkily.

'That's the whole point,' said the sculptor.

'I know,' said Dil sadly, 'it's the nose, isn't it.'

'It was more the chin.'

'And the chin.'

'Yes.'

'Yes.'

They looked in gloomy silence at the waxen visage of the pharaoh. So did the pharaoh.

'Nothing wrong with my chin.'

'You could put a beard on it,' said Dil eventually. 'It'd cover a lot of it, would a beard.'

'There's still the nose.'

'You could take half an inch off that. And do something with the cheekbones.'

'Yes.'

'Yes.'

Gern was horrified. 'That's the face of our late king you're talking about,' he said. 'You can't do that sort of thing! Anyway, people would notice.' He hesitated. 'Wouldn't they?'

The two craftsmen eyed one another.

'Gern,' said Dil patiently, 'certainly they'll notice. But they won't say anything. They expect us to, er, improve matters.'

'After all,' said the chief sculptor cheerfully, 'you don't think they're going to step up and say «It's all wrong, he really had a face like a short-sighted chicken», do you?'

'Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed, I must say.' The pharaoh went and sat by the cat. It seemed that people only had respect for the dead when they thought the dead were listening.

'I suppose,' said the apprentice, with some uncertainty, 'he did look a bit ugly compared to the frescoes.'

'That's the point, isn't it,' said Dil meaningfully. Gern's big honest spotty face changed slowly, like a cratered landscape with clouds passing across it. It was dawning on him that this came under the heading of initiation into ancient craft secrets.

'You mean even the painters change the-' he began.

Dil frowned at him.

'We don't talk about it,' he said.

Gern tried to force his features into an expression of worthy seriousness.

'Oh,' he said. 'Yes. I see, master.'

The sculptor clapped him on the back.

'You're a bright lad, Gern,' he said. 'You catch on. After all, it's bad enough being ugly when you're alive. Think how terrible it would be to be ugly in the netherworld.'

King Teppicymon XXVII shook his head. We all have to look alike when we're alive, he thought, and now they make sure we're identical when we're dead. What a kingdom. He looked down and saw the soul of the late cat, which was washing itself. When he was alive he'd hated the things, but just now it seemed positively companionable. He patted it gingerly on its flat head. It purred for a moment, and then attempted to strip the flesh from his hand. It was on a definite hiding to nothing there.

He was aware with growing horror that the trio was now discussing a pyramid. His pyramid. It was going to be the biggest one ever. It was going to go on a highly fertile piece of sloping ground on a prime site in the necropolis. It was going to make even the biggest existing pyramid look like something a child might construct in a sand tray. It was going to be surrounded by marble gardens and granite obelisks. It was going to be the greatest memorial ever built by a son for his father.

The king groaned.

Ptaclusp groaned.

It had been better in his father's day. You just needed a bloody great heap of log rollers and twenty years, which was useful because it kept everyone out of trouble during Inundation, when all the fields were flooded. Now you just needed a bright lad with a piece of chalk and the right incantations.

Mind you, it was impressive, if you liked that kind of thing.

Ptaclusp IIb walked around the great stone block, tidying an equation here, highlighting a hermetic inscription there. He glanced up and gave his father a brief nod.

Ptaclusp hurried back to the king, who was standing with his retinue on the cliff overlooking the quarry, the sun gleaming off the mask. A royal visit, on top of everything else 'We're ready, if it please you, O arc of the sky,' he said, breaking into a sweat, hoping against hope that Oh gods. The king was going to Put Him at his Ease again.