Pyramids (Discworld 7)

'Er,' he said.

You Bastard chewed happily. Teppic had tethered him too near an olive tree, which was getting a terminal pruning. Sometimes the camel would stop, gaze up briefly at the seagulls that circled everywhere above Ephebe city, and subject them to a short, deadly burst of olive stones.

He was turning over in his mind an interesting new concept in Thau-dimensional physics which unified time, space, magnetism, gravity and, for some reason, broccoli. Periodically he would make noises like distant quarry blasting, but which merely indicated that all stomachs were functioning perfectly.

Ptraci sat under the tree, feeding the tortoise on vine leaves.

Heat crackled off the white walls of the tavern but, Teppic thought, how different it was from the Old Kingdom. There even the heat was old; the air was musty and lifeless, it pressed like a vice, you felt it was made of boiled centuries. Here it was leavened by the breeze from the sea. It was edged with salt crystals. It carried exciting hints of wine; more than a hint in fact, because Xeno was already on his second amphora. This was the kind of place where things rolled up their sleeves and started.

'But I still don't understand about the tortoise,' he said, with some difficulty. He'd just taken his first mouthful of Ephebian wine, and it had apparently varnished the back of his throat.

''S quite simple,' said Xeno. 'Look, let's say this olive stone is the arrow and this, and this-' he cast around aimlessly - 'and this stunned seagull is the tortoise, right? Now, when you fire the arrow it goes from here to the seag - the tortoise, am I right?'

'I suppose so, but-'

'But, by this time, the seagu - the tortoise has moved on a bit, hasn't he? Am I right?'

'I suppose so,' said Teppic, helplessly. Xeno gave him a look of triumph.

'So the arrow has to go a bit further, doesn't it, to where the tortoise is now. Meanwhile the tortoise has flow - moved on, not much, I'll grant you, but it doesn't have to be much. Am I right? So the arrow has a bit further to go, but the point is that by the time it gets to where the tortoise is now the tortoise isn't there. So, if the tortoise keeps moving, the arrow will never hit it. It'll keep getting closer and closer but never hit it. QED.'

'Are you right?' said Teppic automatically.

'No,' said Ibid coldly. 'There's a dozen tortoise kebabs to prove him wrong. The trouble with my friend here is that he doesn't know the difference between a postulate and a metaphor of human existence. Or a hole in the ground.'

'It didn't hit it yesterday,' snapped Xeno.

'Yes, I was watching. You hardly pulled the string back. I saw you,' said Ibid.

They started to argue again.

Teppic stared into his wine mug. These men are philosophers, he thought. They had told him so. So their brains must be so big that they have room for ideas that no-one else would consider for five seconds. On the way to the tavern Xeno had explained to him, for example, why it was logically impossible to fall out of a tree.

Teppic had described the vanishing of the kingdom, but he hadn't revealed his position in it. He hadn't a lot of experience of these matters, but he had a very clear feeling that kings who hadn't got a kingdom any more were not likely to be very popular in neighbouring countries. There had been one or two like that in Ankh-Morpork - deposed royalty, who had fled their suddenly-dangerous kingdoms for Ankh's hospitable bosom carrying nothing but the clothes they stood up in and a few wagonloads of jewels. The city, of course, welcomed anyone - regardless of race, colour, class or creed - who had spending money in incredible amounts, but nevertheless the inhumation of surplus monarchs was a regular source of work for the Assassins' Guild. There was always someone back home who wanted to be certain that deposed monarchs stayed that way. It was usually a case of heir today, gone tomorrow.

t see why,' grumbled an elderly priest at the back of the crowd. 'Bloody knife and fork artist.'

They grabbed him, still protesting, and hurled him into the river.

'All hail-' They paused. 'Who was he high priest of, anyway?'

'Bunu, the Goat-headed God of Goats? Wasn't he?'

'All hail Bunu, probably,' they chorused, as the sacred crocodiles homed in like submarines.

Koomi raised his hands, imploring. It is said that the hour brings forth the man. He was the kind of man that is brought forth by devious and unpleasant hours, and underneath his bald head certain conclusions were beginning to unfold, like things imprisoned for years inside stones. He wasn't yet sure what they were, but they were broadly on the subject of gods, the new age, the need for a firm hand on the helm, and possibly the inserting of Dios into the nearest crocodile. The mere thought filled him with forbidden delight.

'Brethren!' he cried.

'Excuse me,' said the priestess of Sarduk.

'And sistren-'

'Thank you.'

'-let us rejoice!' The assembled priests stood in total silence. This was a radical approach which had not hitherto occurred to them. And Koomi looked at their upturned faces and felt a thrill the like of which he had never experienced before. They were frightened out of their wits, and they were expecting him - him - to tell them what to do.

'Yea!' he said. 'And, indeed, verily, the hour of the gods-'