Pyramids (Discworld 7)

'I assure you, sire, I am in the best of health. The best of health, sire!'

'You don't think you've been overdoing it, do you?'

This time there was no mistaking the expression of terror.

'Overdoing what, sire?'

'You're always bustling, Dios. First one up, last one to bed. You should take it easy.'

'I exist only to serve, sire,' said Dios, firmly. 'I exist only to serve.'

Teppic joined him on the balcony. The early evening sun glowed on a man-made mountain range. This was only the central massif; the pyramids stretched from the delta all the way up to the second cataract, where the Djel disappeared into the mountains. And the pyramids occupied the best land, near the river. Even the farmers would have considered it sacrilegious to suggest anything different.

Some of the pyramids were small, and made of rough-hewn blocks that contrived to look far older than the mountains that fenced the valley from the high desert. After all, mountains had always been there. Words like 'young' and 'old' didn't apply to them. But those first pyramids had been built by human beings, little bags of thinking water held up briefly by fragile accumulations of calcium, who had cut rocks into pieces and then painfully put them back together again in a better shape. They were old.

my life, O light of noonday.'

'It must be fascinating,' said Teppic. Ptaclusp looked sidelong at the high priest, who nodded.

'It has its points, O fount of waters,' he ventured. He wasn't used to kings talking to him as though he was a human being. He felt obscurely that it wasn't right.

Teppic waved a hand at the model on its podium.

'Yes,' he said uncertainly. 'Well. Good. Four walls and a pointy tip. Jolly good. First class. Says it all, really.' There still seemed to be too much silence around. He plunged on.

'Good show,' he said. 'I mean; there's no doubt about it. This is.. . a. . . pyramid. And what a pyramid it is! Indeed.' This still didn't seem enough. He sought for something else. 'People will look at it in centuries to come and they'll say, they'll say . . . that is a pyramid. Um.'

He coughed. 'The walls slope nicely,' he croaked.

'But,' he said.

Two pairs of eyes swivelled towards his.

'Um,' he said.

Dios raised an eyebrow.

'Sire?'

'I seem to remember once, my father said that, you know, when he died, he'd quite like to, sort of thing, be buried at sea.'

There wasn't the choke of outrage he had expected. 'He meant the delta. It's very soft ground by the delta,' said Ptaclusp. 'It'd take months to get decent footings in. Then there's your risk of sinking. And the damp. Not good, damp, inside a pyramid.'

'No,' said Teppic, sweating under Dios's gaze, 'I think what he meant was, you know, in the sea.'

Ptaclusp's brow furrowed. 'Tricky, that,' he said thoughtfully. 'Interesting idea. I suppose one could build a small one, a million tonner, and float it out on pontoons or something...'

'No,' said Teppic, trying not to laugh, 'I think what he meant was, buried without-'

'Teppicymon XXVII means that he would want to be buried without delay,' said Dios, his voice like greased silk. 'And there is no doubt that he would require to honour the very best you can build, architect.'

'No, I'm sure you've got it wrong,' said Teppic.

Dios's face froze. Ptaclusp's slid into the waxen expression of someone with whom it is, suddenly, nothing to do. He started to stare at the floor as if his very survival depended on his memorising it in extreme detail.

'Wrong?' said Dios.

'No offence. I'm sure you mean well,' said Teppic. 'It's just that, well, he seemed very clear about it at the time and-'