Pyramids (Discworld 7)

One of the younger pharaohs lurched forward.

'You bastard,' he croaked. 'You laid us out and shut us away, one by one, and you went on. People thought the name was passed on but it was always you. How old are you, Dios?'

There was no sound. No-one moved. A breeze stirred the dust a little.

Dios sighed.

'I did not mean to,' he said. 'There was so much to do. There were never enough hours in the day. Truly, I did not realise what was happening. I thought it was refreshing, nothing more, I suspected nothing. I noted the passing of the rituals, not the years.'

'Come from a long-lived family, do you?' said Teppicymon sarcastically.

Dios stared at him, his lips moving. 'Family,' he said at last, his voice softened from its normal bark. 'Family. Yes. I must have had a family, mustn't I. But, you know, I can't remember. Memory is the first thing that goes. The pyramids don't seem to preserve it, strangely.'

'This is Dios, the footnote-keeper of history?' said Teppicymon.

'Ah.' The high priest smiled. 'Memory goes from the head. But it is all around me. Every scroll and book.'

'That's the history of the kingdom, man!'

'Yes. My memory.'

The king relaxed a little. Sheer horrified fascination was unravelling the knot of fury.

'How old are you?' he said.

'I think... seven thousand years. But sometimes it seems much longer.'

'Really seven thousand years?'

'Yes,' said Dios.

'How could any man stand it?' said the king.

Dios shrugged.

'Seven thousand years is just one day at a time,' he said. Slowly, with the occasional wince, he got down on one knee and held up his staff in shaking hands.

'O kings,' he said, 'I have always existed only to serve.'

There was a long, extremely embarrassed pause.

'We will destroy the pyramids,' said Far-re-ptah, pushing forward.

'You will destroy the kingdom,' said Dios. 'I cannot allow it.'

'You cannot allow it?'

'Yes. What will we be without the pyramids?' said Dios.

'Speaking for the dead,' said Far-re-ptah, 'we will be free.'

'But the kingdom will be just another small country,' said Dios, and to their horror the ancestors saw tears in his eyes.

'All that we hold dear, you will cast adrift in time. Uncertain. Without guidance. Changeable.'

'Then it can take its chances,' said Teppicymon. 'Stand aside, Dios.'

Dios held up his staff. The snake around it uncoiled and hissed at the king.