'Hmm?'
'The guards will continue their search.'
'Right. Oh-'
Dios bore down on Ptraci's casket, flanked by guards. He gripped the lid, thrust it backwards, and said, 'Behold! What do we find?'
Dil and Gern joined him. They looked inside.
'Wood shavings,' said Dil.
Gern sniffed. 'They smell nice, though,' he said.
Dios's fingers drummed on the lid. Teppic had never seen him at a loss before. The man actually started tapping the sides of the case, apparently seeking any hidden panels.
He closed the lid carefully and looked blankly at Teppic, who for the first time was very glad that the mask didn't reveal his expression.
'She's not in there,' said the old king. 'She got out for a call of nature when the men went to have their breakfast.'
She must have climbed out, Teppic told himself. So where is she now?
Dios scanned the room carefully and then, after swinging slowly backwards and forwards like a compass needle, his eyes fixed on the king's mummy case. It was big. It was roomy. There was a certain inevitability about it.
He crossed the room in a couple of strides and heaved it open.
'Don't bother to knock,' the king grumbled. 'It's not as if I'm going anywhere.'
Teppic risked a look. The mummy of the king was quite alone.
'Are you sure you're feeling all right, Dios?' he said.
reamed out of the sky, a thin rind of sound like a violin bow dragged across the raw surface of the brain.
kkkkheeeeeee. . .
Or a wet fingernail dragged over an exposed nerve, some said. You could set your watch by it, they would have said, if anyone knew what one was.
. . .keeee. . .
It went deeper and deeper as the sunlight washed over the stones, passing through cat scream to dog growl.
. . .ee. . . ee. . . ee.
The flares collapsed.
. . .ops.
'A fine morning, sire. I trust you slept well?'
Teppic waved a hand at Dios, but said nothing. The barber was working through the Ceremony of Going Forth Shaven.
The barber was trembling. Until recently he had been a one-handed, unemployed stonemason. Then the terrible high priest had summoned him and ordered him to be the king's barber, but it meant you had to touch the king but it was all right because it was all sorted out by the priests and nothing more had to be chopped off. On the whole, it was better than he had thought, and a great honour to be singlehandedly responsible for the king's beard, such as it was.
'You were not disturbed in any way?' said the high priest. His eyes scanned the room on a raster of suspicion; it was surprising that little lines of molten rock didn't drip off the walls.
'Verrr-'
'If you would but hold still, O never-dying one,' said the barber, in the pleading tone of voice employed by one who is assured of a guided tour of a crocodile's alimentary tract if he nicks an ear.