Pyramids (Discworld 7)

'You'll really be sorry when I'm sick,' said Chidder. Teppic was aware of the throwing knives stuffed up either sleeve, and that the chances of him being able to get hold of one in time still to be alive to throw it were likely to be very small.

At times like this religious solace is very important. He turned and looked towards the sun, just as it withdrew from the cloudbanks of the dawn.

There was a tiny dot in the centre of it.

The late King Teppicymon XXVII opened his eyes.

'I was flying,' he whispered, 'I remember the feeling of wings. What am I doing here?'

He tried to stand up. There was a temporary feeling of heaviness, which suddenly dropped away so that he rose to his feet almost without any effort. He looked down to see what had caused it.

'Oh dear,' he said.

The culture of the river kingdom had a lot to say about death and what happened afterwards. In fact it had very little to say about life, regarding it as a sort of inconvenient prelude to the main event and something to be hurried through as politely as possible, and therefore the pharaoh reached the conclusion that he was dead very quickly. The sight of his mangled body on the sand below him played a major part in this.

There was a greyness about everything. The landscape had a ghostly look, as though he could walk straight through it. Of course, he thought, I probably can.

He rubbed the analogue of his hands. Well, this is it. This is where it gets interesting; this is where I start to really live.

Behind him a voice said, GOOD MORNING.

The king turned.

'Hallo,' he said. 'You'd be-'

DEATH, said Death.

The king looked surprised.

'I understood that Death came as a three-headed giant scarab beetle,' he said.

Death shrugged. WELL. NOW YOU KNOW.

'What's that thing in your hand?'

THIS? IT'S A SCYTHE.

'Strange-looking object, isn't it?' said the pharaoh. 'I thought Death carried the Flail of Mercy and the Reaping Hook of Justice.'

Death appeared to think about this.

WHAT IN? he said.

'Pardon?'

ARE WE STILL TALKING ABOUT A GIANT BEETLE?

'Ah. In his mandibles, I suppose. But I think he's got arms in one of the frescoes in the palace.' The king hesitated. 'Seems a bit silly, really, now I come to tell someone. I mean, a giant beetle with arms. And the head of an ibis, I seem to recall.'

Death sighed. He was not a creature of Time, and therefore past and future were all one to him, but there had been a period when he'd made an effort to appear in whatever form the client expected. This foundered because it was usually impossible to know what the client was expecting until after they were dead. And then he'd decided that, since no-one ever really expected to die anyway, he might as well please himself and he'd henceforth stuck to the familiar black-cowled robe, which was neat and very familiar and acceptable everywhere, like the best credit cards.

'Anyway,' said the pharaoh, 'I expect we'd better be going.'

WHERE TO?

'Don't you know?'

I AM HERE ONLY TO SEE THAT YOU DIE AT THE APPOINTED TIME. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT IS UP TO YOU.